No Arabic abstract
Although ferromagnetism is in general a long-range collective phenomenon, it is possible to induce local spatial variations of magnetic properties in ferromagnetic materials. For example, systematic variation of the exchange coupling strength can be used to create systems that behave as if they are comprised of virtually independent segments that exhibit local Curie temperatures. Such localization of thermodynamic behavior leads to boundaries between strongly and weakly magnetized regions that can be controllably moved within the material with temperature. The utility of this interesting functionality is largely dependent on the inherent spatial resolution of magnetic properties - specifically the distance over which the exchange strength and corresponding properties behave locally. To test the degree to which this type of localization can be realized in materials, we have fabricated epitaxial films of Co[1-x]Ru[x] alloy featuring a nanometer scale triangular wave-like concentration depth profile. Continuous nanoscale modulation of the local Curie temperature was observed using polarized neutron reflectometry. These results are consistent with mean-field simulations of spin systems that encompass the possibility of delocalized exchange coupling, and show that composition grading can be used to localize magnetic properties in films down to the nanometer level. Since this is demonstrated here for an itinerant metal, we assert that for virtually any modulated magnetic material system, collective effects can be suppressed to length scales smaller than about 3 nm, so that magnetic behavior overall can be well described in terms of local material properties.
We investigated the temperature dependence of the magnetic damping in the exchange biased Pt/ Fe50Mn50 /Fe20Ni80 /SiOx multilayers. In samples having a strong exchange bias, we observed a drastic decrease of the magnetic damping of the FeNi with increasing temperature up to the blocking temperature. The results essentially indicate that the non-local enhancement of the magnetic damping can be choked by the adjacent antiferromagnet and its temperature dependent exchange bias. We also pointed out that such a strong temperature dependent damping may be very beneficial for spintronic applications.
Magnetic-domain structure and dynamics play an important role in understanding and controlling the magnetic properties of two-dimensional magnets, which are of interest to both fundamental studies and applications[1-5]. However, the probe methods based on the spin-dependent optical permeability[1,2,6] and electrical conductivity[7-10] can neither provide quantitative information of the magnetization nor achieve nanoscale spatial resolution. These capabilities are essential to image and understand the rich properties of magnetic domains. Here, we employ cryogenic scanning magnetometry using a single-electron spin of a nitrogen-vacancy center in a diamond probe to unambiguously prove the existence of magnetic domains and study their dynamics in atomically thin CrBr$_3$. The high spatial resolution of this technique enables imaging of magnetic domains and allows to resolve domain walls pinned by defects. By controlling the magnetic domain evolution as a function of magnetic field, we find that the pinning effect is a dominant coercivity mechanism with a saturation magnetization of about 26~$mu_B$/nm$^2$ for bilayer CrBr$_3$. The magnetic-domain structure and pinning-effect dominated domain reversal process are verified by micromagnetic simulation. Our work highlights scanning nitrogen-vacancy center magnetometry as a quantitative probe to explore two-dimensional magnetism at the nanoscale.
The exchange interaction among electrons is one of the most fundamental quantum mechanical interactions in nature and underlies any magnetic phenomena from ferromagnetic ordering to magnetic storage. The current technology is built upon a thermal or magnetic field, but a frontier is emerging to directly control magnetism using ultrashort laser pulses. However, little is known about the fate of the exchange interaction. Here we report unambiguously that photoexcitation is capable of quenching the exchange interaction in all three $3d$ ferromagnetic metals. The entire process starts with a small number of photoexcited electrons which build up a new and self-destructive potential that collapses the system into a new state with a reduced exchange splitting. The spin moment reduction follows a Bloch-like law as $M_z(Delta E)=M_z(0)(1-{Delta E}/{Delta E_0})^{frac{1}{beta}}$, where $Delta E$ is the absorbed photon energy and $beta$ is a scaling exponent. A good agreement is found between the experimental and our theoretical results. Our findings may have a broader implication for dynamic electron correlation effects in laser-excited iron-based superconductors, iron borate, rare-earth orthoferrites, hematites and rare-earth transition metal alloys.
The magnetic stray field is an unavoidable consequence of ferromagnetic devices and sensors leading to a natural asymmetry in magnetic properties. Such asymmetry is particularly undesirable for magnetic random access memory applications where the free layer can exhibit bias. Using atomistic dipole-dipole calculations we numerically simulate the stray magnetic field emanating from the magnetic layers of a magnetic memory device with different geometries. We find that edge effects dominate the overall stray magnetic field in patterned devices and that a conventional synthetic antiferromagnet structure is only partially able to compensate the field at the free layer position. A granular reference layer is seen to provide near-field flux closure while additional patterning defects add significant complexity to the stray field in nanoscale devices. Finally we find that the stray field from a nanoscale antiferromagnet is surprisingly non-zero arising from the imperfect cancellation of magnetic sublattices due to edge defects. Our findings provide an outline of the role of different layer structures and defects in the effective stray magnetic field in nanoscale magnetic random access memory devices and atomistic calculations provide a useful tools to study the stray field effects arising from a wide range of defects.
Using theoretical arguments, we show that, in order to exploit half-metallic ferromagnets in tunneling magnetoresistance (TMR) junctions, it is crucial to eliminate interface states at the Fermi level within the half-metallic gap; contrary to this, no such problem arises in giant magnetoresistance elements. Moreover, based on an a priori understanding of the electronic structure, we propose an antiferromagnetically coupled TMR element, in which interface states are eliminated, as a paradigm of materials design from first principles. Our conclusions are supported by ab-initio calculations.