Room-temperature helimagnetism in FeGe thin films

Zhang, S.L.; Stasinopoulos, I.; Lancaster, T.; Xiao, F.; Bauer, A.; Rucker, F.; Baker, A.A.; Figueroa, A.I.; Salman, Z.; Pratt, F.L.; Blundell, S.J.; Prokscha, T.; Suter, A.; Waizner, J.; Garst, M.; Grundler, D.; van der Laan, G.; Pfleiderer, C.; Hesjedal, T.

Abstract

Chiral magnets are promising materials for the realisation of high-density and low-power spintronic memory devices. For these future applications, a key requirement is the synthesis of appropriate materials in the form of thin films ordering well above room temperature. Driven by the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction, the cubic compound FeGe exhibits helimagnetism with a relatively high transition temperature of 278 K in bulk crystals. We demonstrate that this temperature can be enhanced significantly in thin films. Using x-ray scattering and ferromagnetic resonance techniques, we provide unambiguous experimental evidence for long-wavelength helimagnetic order at room temperature and magnetic properties similar to the bulk material. We obtain αintr = 0.0036 ± 0.0003 at 310 K for the intrinsic damping parameter. We probe the dynamics of the system by means of muon-spin rotation, indicating that the ground state is reached via a freezing out of slow dynamics. Our work paves the way towards the fabrication of thin films of chiral magnets that host certain spin whirls, so-called skyrmions, at room temperature and potentially offer integrability into modern electronics.

Citation

Zhang, S., Stasinopoulos, I., Lancaster, T., Xiao, F., Bauer, A., Rucker, F., …Hesjedal, T. (2017). Room-temperature helimagnetism in FeGe thin films. Scientific Reports, 7(1), Article 123. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-00201-z

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Feb 14, 2017
• Online Publication Date: Mar 9, 2017
• Publication Date: Mar 9, 2017
• Deposit Date: Mar 6, 2017
• Publicly Available Date: Mar 7, 2017
• Journal: Scientific Reports
• Publisher: Nature Research
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 7
• Issue: 1
• Article Number: 123
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-00201-z
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1383925