The magnetoelectric (ME) effect is the property that a material’s magnetic polarization can be influenced by an external electric field (converse ME) or that the electric polarization can be influenced by an external magnetic field (direct ME). More recently, the ME effect has obtained significant interest due to its potential applications in advanced technologies such as sensors, tuneable filters and inductors, spintronics, energy-efficient memory devices, energy-harvesting for wearables and IoT and even logic devices thanks to the advances on thin films materials and their stacking, forming composite heterostructures. Such heterostructures are composed of a magnetostrictive layer and a piezoelectric layer, giving rise to a ME effect that is mainly driven by strain coupling. The properties and quality of each individual layer, and the obtained interface between those layers sets the performance of ME devices. In this project, the student will actively participate in the full cycle of the development of a ME device, combining theoretical modelling and simulation, material synthesis and characterization, and device fabrication and testing. The focus applications will be ultra-high performance biomedical sensing and tuneable RF filters targeting 5G/6G frequency bands. 
The PhD is divided in two main parts: 

1. Development of a high quality magnetoelectric stack, by investigating different magnetostrictive (FeCoB, Ni) and piezoelectric (AlScN, PZT) thin films and their coupling. Addition of extra layers in the stack to improve device performance (such as including synthetic antiferromagnet) will also be studied. 
2. Fabrication and optimization of an ME device, with focus on sensors for biomedical applications and tunable RF filters.

It is expected that the student will invest her/his time in equal parts between TU Wien and SAL at the beginning of the project. Along the project development, more time will be dedicated to SAL, as the student will be key in transferring the obtained knowledge. After understanding the materials’ properties and fabrication processes, the project will culminate in working ME device(s) with promising performance to ignite the interest of industrial partners.