Micromagnetic simulations of magnetoelectric materials

Some magnetic materials show a magnetoelectric coupling between inhomogeneous magnetization patterns and electric polarization that is sufficiently strong to allow external control of magnetization structure by electric fields. Numerical simulations of "magnetoelectric" materials of this type require an extension of the standard micromagnetic model which conceptually parallels the introduction of spin-current interaction terms. We show how the micromagnetic simulator "Nmag" can be extended to support the inhomogeneous magnetoelectric interaction term and also give a simple self-contained example for simulating the micromagnetic dynamics of a magnetoelectric system in the presence of an external electric field. (C) 2011 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3565999]