houssny bouyanfif

We investigated the ultrafast dynamics of a SrRuO3/BiFeO3 superlattice grown on a SrTiO3 substrate using a near infrared pump–probe technique at various temperatures. The superlattice exhibits a ferromagnetic order inherited from the SrRuO3 layer. The pump-induced changes in the reflectivity reveal periodic oscillations. We found that the oscillation frequency can be well explained by zone-folded acoustic phonon oscillations, whose dispersion depends on the sound velocity, density, and thickness within the supercell of each constituent layer. It is found that the observed oscillation frequency corresponds to the A1 mode, which suggests that oscillations are excited due to pump-induced expansion of the SrRuO3 layer that absorbs the pump photon. Temperature-dependent measurements reveal significant suppression of the oscillation amplitude in the ferromagnetic state. The suppressed amplitude is proportional to the square of the magnetization, M(T)2. This phenomenon can be attributed to a strong magnetostriction effect of SrRuO3 that suppresses lattice expansion upon pumping.

The large switchable ferroelectric polarization and lead-free composition of BiFeO3 make it a promising candidate as an active material in numerous applications, in particular, in micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) when BiFeO3 is integrated in a thin film form on a silicon substrate. Here, 200-nm-thick Mn-doped BiFeO3 thin films have been epitaxially grown on a SrRuO3/SrTiO3/Si substrate and patterned into microcantilevers as prototype device structures for piezoelectric actuation. The devices demonstrate excellent ferroelectric response with a remanent polarization of 55 μC/cm2. The epitaxial BiFeO3 MEMS exhibit very high piezoelectric response with transverse piezoelectric coefficient d31 reaching 83 pm/V. The BiFeO3 cantilevers show larger electromechanical performance (the ratio of curvature/electric field) than that of state-of-art piezoelectric cantilevers, including well-known PZT (Pb(Zr,Ti)O3) and the hyper-active PMN–PT (Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3-PbTiO3). In addition, the piezoelectricity in BiFeO3 MEMS is found to depend on the ferroelectric polarization direction, which could originate from the flexoelectric effect and be exploited to further enhance the electromechanical performance of the devices. These results could potentially lead to a replacement of lead-based piezoelectrics by BiFeO3 in many microdevices.