Investigation of magnetostrictive/piezoelectric multilayer composite with a giant zero-biased magnetoelectric effect

In this paper, we investigate the resonance magnetoelectric (ME) effect in the middle supported multilayer composites consisting of high-permeability Fe-based nanocrystalline soft magnetic alloy Fe_73.5Cu₁Nb₃Si_13.5B₉ (FeCuNbSiB), Nickel (Ni), and piezoelectric Pb(Zr_1?x Ti _x )O₃ (PZT). The coupling effect between positive magnetostrictive FeCuNbSiB and negative magnetostrictive Ni results in the build-in magnetic bias due to their different magnetic permeability and coercivity. As a result, a giant resonance ME voltage coefficient (α _ME,r ) at zero DC magnetic bias field (H _dc) and multi-peaks of α _ME,r for FeCuNbSiB/Ni/PZT/Ni/FeCuNbSiB composite are observed. The experimental results show that the giant zero-biased α _ME,r strongly depends on the thickness of FeCuNbSiB ribbon. The maximum zero-biased α _ME,r is up to 86 V/cm?Oe for FeCuNbSiB/Ni/PZT/Ni/FeCuNbSiB with four-layer FeCuNbSiB ribbons, which is ～500 times higher than that of the previously reported NKNLS-NZF/Ni/NKNLS-NZF trilayer composite. Compared with the peak α _ME,r and the optimum H _dc of Ni/PZT/Ni composite, the largest peak α _ME,r of FeCuNbSiB/Ni/PZT/Ni/FeCuNbSiB composite with four-layer FeCuNbSiB ribbons increases ～185 %, and the optimum H _dc decreases ～300 Oe, respectively. Based on the nonlinear magnetostrictive constitutive relation and the magnetoelectric equivalent circuit, a theoretical model of α _ME,r versus H _dc is built under free boundary conditions. Calculated zero-biased α _ME,r and α _ME,r versus H _dc are in good agreement with the experimental data. This laminate composite shows promising applications for high-sensitivity power-free magnetic field sensors, zero-biased ME transducers and small-size energy harvesters.