Magnetoelectric effect in La<inf>0.7</inf>Sr<inf>0.3</inf>MnO <inf>3</inf>-BaTiO<inf>3</inf> core-shell nanocomposite

We report the magnetoelectric properties of La0.7Sr 0.3MnO3-BaTiO3 core-shell nanostructure synthesized by sol-gel method. X-ray diffraction analysis suggests that the BaTiO3 undergoes large strain in the core-shell structure which can be attributed to lattice induced strain. Interestingly, the core-shell nanoparticle exhibits enhanced magnetization (143 emu/g) compared to the ferromagnetic La0.7Sr0.3MnO3 bare core (20 emu/g). The core-shell structure also exhibits inherent magnetoelectric coupling which is reflected as an anomaly at the ferroelectric transition in the magnetization measurement. The direct magnetoelectric measurement on La 0.7Sr0.3MnO3-BaTiO3 nanocomposite revealed the magnetoelectric voltage coefficient value as 54.5 mV/cm Oe at 1 kOe, which is a promising result compared to the other perovskite based nanocomposites. © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.