Nanometer-Thick Yttrium Iron Garnet Films With Extremely Low Damping

Journal Article · Wed Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 2014 · IEEE Magnetics Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1109/LMAG.2014.2350958· OSTI ID:1357157

Houchen Chang,; Peng Li,; Wei Zhang,; Tao Liu,; Hoffmann, Axel; Longjiang Deng,; Mingzhong Wu,

Yttrium iron garnet (YIG) films that are in the nanometer thickness range and show extremely low damping are reported. The films were deposited via sputtering at room temperature and were then annealed in O₂ at high temperature. A 22-nm-thick YIG film showed a Gilbert damping constant α = (8.58 ± 0.21) × 10^-5, which represents the lowest damping ever reported for nanometer-thick magnetic films. The film had a gyromagnetic ratio of |γ| = 2.83 MHz/Oe and a saturation induction of 4πM_s = 1766 G, which are both very close to those of single-crystal YIG bulk materials. The film had a very smooth surface, with an rms surface roughness of about 0.13 nm.

• Research Organization: Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science - Office of Basic Energy Sciences - Materials Sciences and Engineering Division; Center for Spintronic Materials Interfaces and Novel Architectures (C-SPIN); National Science Foundation (NSF); U.S. Army Research Laboratory - U.S. Army Research Office (ARO)
• DOE Contract Number: AC02-06CH11357
• OSTI ID: 1357157
• Journal Information: IEEE Magnetics Letters, Vol. 5, Issue 2014; ISSN 1949-307X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

Gilbert damping
current topics
ferromagnetic resonance
sputtering
yttrium iron garnet films