Perpendicular Magnetic Anisotropy and Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya Interaction at an Oxide/Ferromagnetic Metal Interface

Weinan Lin, Baishun Yang, Andy Paul Chen, Xiaohan Wu, Rui Guo, Shaohai Chen, Liang Liu, Qidong Xie, Xinyu Shu, Yajuan Hui, Gan Moog Chow, Yuanping Feng, Giovanni Carlotti, Silvia Tacchi, Hongxin Yang, and Jingsheng Chen

Phys. Rev. Lett. 124, 217202 – Published 26 May 2020

Abstract

We report on the study of both perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA) and Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI) at an oxide/ferromagnetic metal (FM) interface, i.e., ${BaTiO}_{3}$ $(BTO) / CoFeB$ . Thanks to the functional properties of the BTO film and the capability to precisely control its growth, we are able to distinguish the dominant role of the oxide termination ( ${TiO}_{2}$ vs BaO) from the moderate effect of ferroelectric polarization in the BTO film, on the PMA and DMI at an oxide/FM interface. We find that the interfacial magnetic anisotropy energy of the $BaO − BTO / CoFeB$ structure is 2 times larger than that of the ${TiO}_{2} − BTO / CoFeB$ , while the DMI of the ${TiO}_{2} − BTO / CoFeB$ interface is larger. We explain the observed phenomena by first principles calculations, which ascribe them to the different electronic states around the Fermi level at oxide/ferromagnetic metal interfaces and the different spin-flip process. This study paves the way for further investigation of the PMA and DMI at various oxide/FM structures and thus their applications in the promising field of energy-efficient devices.

Received 8 July 2019
Accepted 1 May 2020

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.124.217202

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction Ferroelectricity First-principles calculations Magnetic anisotropy

Interfaces Thin films

Brillouin scattering & spectroscopy Magnetization measurements

Condensed Matter, Materials & Applied Physics

Authors & Affiliations

Weinan Lin^1,*, Baishun Yang ^2,*, Andy Paul Chen³, Xiaohan Wu¹, Rui Guo¹, Shaohai Chen¹, Liang Liu ¹, Qidong Xie¹, Xinyu Shu¹, Yajuan Hui ¹, Gan Moog Chow ¹, Yuanping Feng^3,4, Giovanni Carlotti⁵, Silvia Tacchi ^6,†, Hongxin Yang ^2,‡, and Jingsheng Chen ^1,3,§

¹Department of Materials Science and Engineering, National University of Singapore, 117575, Singapore
²Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ningbo 315201, China and Center of Materials Science and Optoelectronics Engineering, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
³NUS Graduate School of Integrative Sciences and Engineering, National University of Singapore, 117456, Singapore
⁴Department of Physics, National University of Singapore, 117576, Singapore
⁵Dipartimento di Fisica e Geologia, Università di Perugia, Via Pascoli, I-06123 Perugia, Italy
⁶Istituto Officina dei Materiali del CNR (CNR-IOM), Sede Secondaria di Perugia, c/o Dipartimento di Fisica e Geologia, Università di Perugia, I-06123 Perugia, Italy

^*These authors contributed equally to this work.
^†Corresponding author. msecj@nus.edu.sg
^‡Corresponding author. hongxin.yang@nimte.ac.cn
^§Corresponding author. tacchi@iom.cnr.it

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Issue

Vol. 124, Iss. 21 — 29 May 2020

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