A large fraction of this uniaxial strain is transferred to the magnetoelastically coupled ferromagnetic layers whose magnetization switches to in plane via the inverse magnetostriction effect. On the other hand, the ferroelectric polarization reorients from to direction in a dislocation-free BaTiO 3, inducing the maximum achievable in-plane compressive strain of 1.1%. This, in turn, results in a modest reduction of the PMA of the ferromagnetic layer. A dense twinned structure in conjunction with a high dislocation density significantly reduces the converse piezoelectric effect of BaTiO 3 by hindering the propagation of newly nucleated domains with an applied electric field. We investigate the influence of dislocations and twin walls in BaTiO 3 on its ferroelectric response and the resulting effect on the perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA) of a strain-coupled n film.
