High-quality single-crystal thulium iron garnet films with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy by off-axis sputtering

High-quality single-crystal thulium iron garnet (TmIG) films of 10-30 nm thick were grown by off-axis sputtering at room temperature (RT) followed by post-annealing. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) was employed to determine the TmIG film composition to optimize the growth conditions, along wi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:AIP advances 2018-05, Vol.8 (5), p.055904-055904-6
Main Authors: Wu, C. N., Tseng, C. C., Lin, K. Y., Cheng, C. K., Yeh, S. L., Fanchiang, Y. T., Hong, M., Kwo, J.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Atomic force microscopes
Atomic force microscopy
Coercivity
Crystals
Ferromagnetic resonance
Ferromagnetism
Heavy metals
Iron
Magnetic anisotropy
Magnetic saturation
Morphology
Single crystals
Spin-orbit interactions
Sputtering
Structural analysis
Thick films
Thulium
Topological insulators
X ray photoelectron spectroscopy
X-ray diffraction
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Summary:High-quality single-crystal thulium iron garnet (TmIG) films of 10-30 nm thick were grown by off-axis sputtering at room temperature (RT) followed by post-annealing. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) was employed to determine the TmIG film composition to optimize the growth conditions, along with the aid of x-ray diffraction (XRD) structural analysis and atomic force microscope (AFM) for surface morphology. The optimized films exhibited perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA) and the saturation magnetization at RT was ∼99 emu/cm3, close to the RT bulk value ∼110 emu/cm3 with a very low coercive field of ∼2.4 Oe. We extracted the H ⊥ of 1734 Oe and the peak-to-peak linewidth ΔH of ferromagnetic resonance are only about 99 Oe, significantly lower than that of PLD grown TmIG film and bulk single crystals. The high-quality sputtered single-crystal TmIG films show great potential to be integrated with topological insulators or heavy metals with strong spin-orbit coupling for spintronic applications.
ISSN:2158-3226
2158-3226
DOI:10.1063/1.5006673