posted on 2018-06-11, 12:14authored byT.D.C. Higgs, S. Bonetti, H. Ohldag, Niladri Banerjee, X.L. Wang, A.J. Rosenberg, Z. [Univ. of Cambridge] Cai, J.H. Zhao, K.A. Moler, J.W.A. Robinson
Thin film magnetic heterostructures with competing interfacial coupling and Zeeman energy provide a fertile ground to study phase transition between different equilibrium states as a function of external magnetic field and temperature. A rare-earth (RE)/transition metal (TM) ferromagnetic multilayer is a classic example where the magnetic state is determined by a competition between the Zeeman energy and antiferromagnetic interfacial exchange coupling energy. Technologically, such structures offer the possibility to engineer the macroscopic magnetic response by tuning the microscopic interactions between the layers. We have performed an exhaustive study of nickel/gadolinium as a model system for understanding RE/TM multilayers using the element-specific measurement technique x-ray magnetic circular dichroism, and determined the full magnetic state diagrams as a function of temperature and magnetic layer thickness. We compare our results to a modified Stoner-Wohlfarth-based model and provide evidence of a thickness-dependent transition to a magnetic fan state which is critical in understanding magnetoresistance effects in RE/TM systems. The results provide important insight for spintronics and superconducting spintronics where engineering tunable magnetic inhomogeneity is key for certain applications.
Funding
T.D.C.H. and J.W.A.R. acknowledge funding from the EPSRC [EP/I038047/1], the EPSRC Programme grant “Superconducting Spintronics” [EP/N017242/1] and the Leverhulme Trust [IN-2013-033]. S.B. acknowledges support from the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation. X.L.W. and J.H.Z. acknowledge support from the
MOST of China [2015CB921500].
History
School
Science
Department
Physics
Published in
Scientific Reports
Volume
6
Citation
HIGGS, T.D.C. ... et al., 2016. Magnetic coupling at rare earth ferromagnet/transition metal ferromagnet interfaces: A comprehensive study of Gd/Ni. Scientific Reports, 6: 30092.
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
Version
VoR (Version of Record)
Publisher statement
This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Acceptance date
2016-06-29
Publication date
2016
Notes
This is an Open Access Article. It is published by Nature Group under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported Licence (CC BY). Full details of this licence are available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/