ALBERT

Description: The field-orientation dependent magnetoelectric coupling is experimentally studied for a rectangular Terfenol-D/PZT/Terfenol-D laminated structure. The considered magnetic field, namely the dc-bias magnetic field or the ac-excitation magnetic field, is allowed to be spatially re-orientated between two orthogonal geometric dimensions of the composite. In the study, the direction of the excitation can be fixed in the longitudinal (Scheme-I) or thickness (Scheme-II) directions, while considering the bias orientation. Alternatively, the bias field can be restricted to the longitudinal (Scheme-III) or thickness (Scheme-IV) directions, while the excitation orientation is considered. The variation in magnetoelectric coefficient as a function of the bias magnitude is studied with special attention paid to the field-orientation dependency. For the testing schemes of I and II, the direction of the dc-bias field can be re-oriented by forming an angle with the fixed direction of the ac-excitation field. As the angle changes from 0° to 90°, the magnetoelectric coupling evolves from L-T mode to S-T surface shear for Scheme-I, and from T-T mode to S-T thickness shear for Scheme-II. The bias-field-orientation dependence demonstrates a complex pattern due to the varying overall state of anisotropy in Terfenol-D. In Scheme-I with low bias magnitude, the orientation dependence can be represented by the measured effective longitudinal piezomagnetic coefficient. In addition, the optimal bias field for maximum magnetoelectric coefficient is observed to linearly increase with the bias orientation angle. Alternatively, the orientation dependence in Schemes III and IV is more predictable due to the barely changed overall state of anisotropy. In this case, Scheme-III shows that the magnetoelectric coefficient decreases monotonically with the orientation angle and Scheme-IV indicates that the maximum coefficient is attained at around 60°. The dependence of the magnetoelectric coupling on the excitation-filed orientation can be understood via analysis of the resultant magnetostriction in Terfenol-D with assumed effective magnetization, which may depart from the bias field due to the strong demagnetization effect. The analysis is supported by the computed field-orientation dependence of the magnetostriction in Terfenol-D.