New York, Jan 14 (IANS): Indian-American researcher Jay Narayan from North Carolina State University has developed novel multiferroic materials that will allow the development of new electronic memory devices.

Multiferroic materials have both ferroelectric and ferromagnetic properties.

"These multiferroic materials offer the possibility of switching a material's magnetism with an electric field, or switching its electric polarity with a magnetic field - making them very attractive for use in next-generation, low-power, nonvolatile memory storage devices," explained Narayan, John C. Fan Distinguished Chair professor of materials science and engineering.

"We have already fabricated prototype memory devices using these integrated, multiferroic materials and are testing them now," Narayan informed.

Researchers had previously known that a multiferroic material can be created by layering barium titanate (BTO), which is ferroelectric and lanthanum strontium magnese oxide (LSMO), which is ferromagnetic.

Narayan's team advanced the work in two ways.

First, by developing a technique to give BTO ferromagnetic properties, making it multiferroic without the need for LSMO and second by developing buffer layers that can be used to integrate either the multiferroic BTO or the multiferroic BTO/LSMO bilayer film onto a silicon chip.

To make BTO multiferroic, the researchers used a high-power nanosecond pulse laser to create oxygen vacancy-related defects into the material.

These defects create ferromagnetic properties in the BTO.

We will now begin looking for industry partners to make the transition to manufacturing," Narayan concluded.