Giant magnetoelectric effect of a hybrid of magnetostrictive and piezoelectric composites

A magnetoelectric (ME) hybrid structure is constructed by an efficient coupling between magnetostrictive Terfenol-D (Tb0.27-0.30Dy0.73-0.70Fe1.90-1.95)/epoxy and piezoelectric lead–zirconate–titanate [Pb(Zr0.52Ti0.48)O3]/epoxy composites. Significant ME effect produced by the piezoelectric k31 coupling with the longitudinal vibration of the magnetostrictive component over a wide range of frequency is observed. It is revealed that the ME effect can be enhanced by applying an optimized magnetic bias. A magnetoelectric voltage coefficient as high as 8700 mV/cm Oe is recorded at the resonance frequency of 59.2 kHz for the structure with an optimized magnetic bias of 0.7 kOe. Our measurement confirms that the eddy current loss remains negligibly small at an operating frequency as high as ∼200 kHz, predicting very promising applications of the present ME structure.