Recent Trends in Voltage Tunable Microwave Devices with Multiferroic Materials

Multiferroic materials which display the coexistence of ferromagnetism (FM) and ferroelectric (FE) polarization have drawn considerable attention due to their fundamental physical characteristics and potentially wide applications including tunable microwave devices. In a multiferroic material system, due to the mutual coupling of the ferroelectric and ferromagnetic order, an applied magnetic field can alter the dielectric polarization and an applied electric field can alter the magnetic polarization. This gives an additional degree of freedom to the designer for developing voltage tunable devices. There are some patented technologies which demonstrate the importance and development of multiferroic thin films for voltage tunable devices. This manuscript presents an analysis of the present and future of the mutiferroic materials- based technology for microwave applications. It also gives an extensive summary of recent patents and other relevant articles published in this field.