Abstract
In this work, the (1 1 1)-oriented Fe3O4/BiFeO3 (BFO) multiferroic heterostructures were fabricated on the flexible muscovite (mica) substrate by magnetron sputtering. Hysteresis loops reveal the obvious exchange bias effect in the flexible Fe3O4/BFO heterostructures and demonstrate that this effect related to the coupling interaction at the interface between the Fe3O4 and the BFO. In the inward or outward bending heterostructures, the decrease of the exchange bias field (H-EB) is resulted from the variation of the Fe-A(3+) - [O-4] (8-)(Fe3O4)-Fe(BFO)(3+ )bond length and bond angle or/and the charge reconstruction effect of the Fe3O4 thin film in bending states. This exchange bias effect in the flexible Fe3O4/BFO heterostructures will contribute to the development of the next generation flexible storage device.