http://insciences.org/article.php?article_id=8417&utm_source=feedburner&...

MADISON - A team led by University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers has developed a new approach for creating powerful nanodevices, and their discoveries could pave the way for other researchers to begin more widespread development of these devices.

The discoveries were published in the online edition of Nature Materials today (Feb. 28). Chang-Beom Eom, a UW-Madison professor of materials science and engineering, leads the team, which includes UW-Madison graduate students and research associates and collaborators from Penn State University, the University of Michigan and the University of California, Berkeley.

Particular metal-oxide materials (including some ferrites) have a unique magneto-electric property that allows the material to switch its magnetic field when its polarization is switched by an electric field and vice versa. This property means these materials can be used as bases for devices that act like signal translators capable of producing electrical, magnetic or even optical responses, and the devices can store information in any of these forms.