The manipulation of magnetic ordering with applied electric fields is of pressing interest for new magnetoelectric devices and information storage applications. Recently, such magnetoelectric control was realized in multiferroics. However, their magnetoelectric switching is often accompanied by significant hysteresis, resulting from a large barrier, separating different ferroic states. Hysteresis prevents robust switching, unless the applied field overcomes a certain value (coercive field). Here we address the role of a switching barrier on magnetoelectric control, and identify a material, collinear antiferromagnetic and pyroelectric Ni 3 TeO 6 , in which magnetoelectric switching occurs without hysteresis. The barrier between two magnetic states in the vicinity of a spin-flop transition is almost flat, and thus small changes in external electric/magnetic fields allow to switch the ferroic state through an intermediate state in a continuous manner, resulting in a colossal magnetoelectric response. This colossal magnetoelectric effect resembles the large piezoelectric effect at the morphotropic phase boundary in ferroelectrics.

entes combinaisons de charges et de préparation des échantillons. On démontre que le modèle est en mesure de simuler, de façon harmonisée, les résultats expérimentaux reflétant les effets conjugués des méthodes de préparation des échantillons, des chemins de charge, de la densité du sol, et des pressions de confinement.

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