Remote control of magnetostriction-based nanocontacts at room temperature

The remote control of the electrical conductance through nanosized junctions at room temperature will play an important role in future nano-electromechanical systems and electronic devices. This can be achieved by exploiting the magnetostriction effects of ferromagnetic materials. Here we report on the electrical conductance of magnetic nanocontacts obtained from wires of the giant magnetostrictive compound Tb(0.3)Dy(0.7)Fe(1.95) as an active element in a mechanically controlled break-junction device. The nanocontacts are reproducibly switched at room temperature between “open” (zero conductance) and “closed” (nonzero conductance) states by variation of a magnetic field applied perpendicularly to the long wire axis. Conductance measurements in a magnetic field oriented parallel to the long wire axis exhibit a different behaviour where the conductance switches between both states only in a limited field range close to the coercive field. Investigating the conductance in the regime of electron tunneling by mechanical or magnetostrictive control of the electrode separation enables an estimation of the magnetostriction. The present results pave the way to utilize the material in devices based on nano-electromechanical systems operating at room temperature.