Novel coupling layer allows detailed control over magnetic multilayers

21.12.2020

Together with the group of Erol Girt from the Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, Canada, the group of Dieter Suess found a way to control the coupling angle in magnetic multilayers.

Magnetic multilayer systems play a key role in the development of novel storage technologies like spin-transfer torque MRAM and spin-orbit torque MRAM. Up till now, the exchange coupling of two neighboring magnetic layers could be varied in a collinear fashion only by means of the Ruderman–Kittel–Kasuya–Yosida (RKKY) interaction. By varying the iron content in a RuFe spacer layer, the group of Erol Girt from SFU, Burnaby, Canada, showed that the coupling angle can be tuned to arbitrary values by introducing a biquadratic contribution to the interface coupling. Claas Abert and Dieter Suess delivered a theoretical model to describe this novel effect. The joint work was published in Science Advances.

Science Advances  25 Nov 2020:
Vol. 6, no. 48, eabd8861
DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abd8861

Links:
Physics of Functional Materials: fun.univie.ac.at
Research Platform MMM Mathematics-Magnetism-Materials: ufind.univie.ac.at/en/pvz_sub.html

Phase plot for noncollinear coupling due to RuFe spacer layers. (c) Claas Abert, University of Vienna, Physics of Functional Materials