Dresden 2026 – scientific programme

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MA: Fachverband Magnetismus

MA 4: Focus Session: Novel mechanisms of ferroic switching (joint session MA/FM)

MA 4.5: Talk

Monday, March 9, 2026, 11:30–11:45, POT/0151

Multi-cell unit storage based on a multiferroic — •Maksim Ryzhkov¹, Alexey Shuvaev¹, Maxim Mostovoy², Andrei Pimenov¹, Anna Pimenov¹, and Sergey Artyukhin³ — ¹Institute of Solid State Physics, Vienna University of Technology, Vienna, Austria — ²Zernike Institute for Advanced Materials, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands — ³Quantum Materials Theory, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Genova, Italy

Recent advances in multiferroic materials offer promising prospects for next-generation memory and data-processing devices. Previous studies [1,2] have shown that rare-earth manganates RMn₂O₅, particularly with R = Gd, are strong candidates for storage applications due to their topologically protected four-state magnetoelectric switching and the efficient electric-field control of this switching.
In this work, we demonstrate that this system enables the realization of a multi-cell storage unit capable of encoding and decoding at least five bits. We show that only two key ingredients are required:
(i) the four-state magnetoelectric switching observed during magnetic-field sweeps, and
(ii) a ferroelectric domain structure in the bulk together with local inhomogeneities (e.g., internal mechanical stresses) that produce a distribution of the spin-flop critical field H_c across different domains.
Thus, the magnetoelectric domains in GdMn₂O₅ are not an unwanted bug but an essential feature enabling multi-cell functionality.
[1] L. Ponet, et al., Nature 607, 81-85 (2022)
[2] H. Wang, et al., PRL 134, 016708 (2025)

Keywords: ferroelectric switching; multiferroics; memory devices