Temperature Dependence of Magnetically Dead Layers in Ferromagnetic Thin-Films

Tokac, M.; Kinane, C.J.; Atkinson, D.; Hindmarch, A.T.

Abstract

Polarized neutron reflectometry has been used to study interface magnetism and magnetic dead layers in model amorphous CoFeB:Ta alloy thin-film multilayers with Curie temperatures tuned to be below room-temperature. This allows temperature dependent variations in the effective magnetic thickness of the film to be determined at temperatures that are a significant fraction of the Curie temperature, which cannot be achieved in the material systems used for spintronic devices. In addition to variation in the effective magnetic thickness due to compositional grading at the interface with the tantalum capping layer, the key finding is that at the interface between ferromagnetic film and GaAs(001) substrate local interfacial alloying creates an additional magnetic dead-layer. The thickness of this magnetic dead-layer is temperature dependent, which may have significant implications for elevated-temperature operation of hybrid ferromagnetic metal-semiconductor spintronic devices.

Citation

Tokac, M., Kinane, C., Atkinson, D., & Hindmarch, A. (2017). Temperature Dependence of Magnetically Dead Layers in Ferromagnetic Thin-Films. AIP Advances, 7(11), Article 115022. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4997366

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Nov 15, 2017
• Online Publication Date: Nov 27, 2017
• Publication Date: Nov 27, 2017
• Deposit Date: Jul 20, 2017
• Publicly Available Date: Nov 28, 2017
• Journal: AIP Advances
• Electronic ISSN: 2158-3226
• Publisher: American Institute of Physics
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 7
• Issue: 11
• Article Number: 115022
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4997366
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1381587