Critical issues and future prospects of particulate magnetoelectric composites

Within ten years magnetoelectric multiferroics could be implemented into the emerging technologies such as wireless power, mesh network, etc. Remarkable efforts have been done to develop laminated multilayer multiferroic composites. These structures lead to remarkable magneto-electric coupling coefficients of a few V cm-1 Oe-1 because the ferroic multilayer is a "full dielectric" which can be completely poled in the conventional way. On the other hand in the particulate ceramic composites the requirement for "full dielectric" is no longer applicable, since the ferroic phases are fully separated within the composite. The main strength of particulate ceramic composites is the higher strain mediated magneto-electric coupling since electric order phase/magnetic phase interface density can be higher. In this work the process' developments and the functional characterizations of particulate PZT-CoFe2O4 composites are presented. Up to date, by setting a quite-fast sintering, full densification (up to 99%) and prevention of unwanted reactions were achieved, but reaching the electric saturation of the PZT matrix is still a challenge.