Magnetoelectric Composites: Modeling and Application

The progress in electronic technology is directly coupled with the advances made in materials science. Within the broad class of materials available today, functional materials provide unique opportunity for developing novel components and devices as their physical and chemical properties. A combination of ferromagnetic and ferroelectric materials provides a new class of functional materials, termed as magnetoelectrics. An overview of modern magnetoelectric composites and examples of the design of electronic devices based on them are presented. The feature of these materials is that their parameters changes under the influence of an external magnetic and electric fields. The behavior of magnetoelectric composites in the wide frequency range is considered. Modeling of ME composites at low frequencies and in the field of electromechanical, ferromagnetic and magnetoacoustic resonances has shown that they can be effectively used to design various electronic devices in a wide frequency range. Nomographs method which can be used to plot the ME parameters versus initial material parameters and component volume fractions is presented. Nomographs can be used for a quick test of ME composites for applications where an approximate answer is appropriate and useful. Examples of ME composites application such as: magnetic field sensors, current sensors, microwave phase shifters, filters, attenuators, isolators are presented.