Course: PHYS 588. Multiferroic Materials and Systems (3)
Prerequisite: PHYS 451. The lectures cover a wide area of topics ranging from electronic structure, to mechanical properties, to experimental methods of multiferroic systems. Upon completing the course, the student will gain a good overview of multiferroic materials ranging from history to devices applications. Different types of multiferroic materials will be studied with basic crystal structure of single-phase multiferroics presented as well as the fundamental physics underlying ferroelectricity and ferromagnetism. A material science description of these materials focusing on linear and nonlinear behavior with associated mechanisms such as spin reorientation will be discussed. We will also present analytical tools used to predict materials’ response ranging from constitutive relations to governing equations including elastodynamics and Maxwell’s. Analytical and physical descriptions used to explain several devices manufactured with multiferroics including magnetometers, memory devices, motors and antennas will also be presented.