Ultralow Damping in Nanometer-Thick Epitaxial Spinel Ferrite Thin Films

Emori, Satoru; Yi, Di; Crossley, Sam; Wisser, Jacob J.; Balakrishnan, Purnima P.; Khodadadi, Behrouz; Shafer, Padraic; Klewe, Christoph; N’Diaye, Alpha T.; Urwin, Brittany T.; Mahalingam, Krishnamurthy; Howe, Brandon M.; Hwang, Harold Y.; Arenholz, Elke; Suzuki, Yuri

doi:10.1021/acs.nanolett.8b01261

Ultralow Damping in Nanometer-Thick Epitaxial Spinel Ferrite Thin Films

Journal Article · Thu May 24 04:00:00 EDT 2018 · Nano Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.nanolett.8b01261· OSTI ID:1470932

^[1]; Yi, Di ^[2]; Crossley, Sam ^[2]; Wisser, Jacob J. ^[2]; Balakrishnan, Purnima P. ^[2]; Khodadadi, Behrouz ^[3]; ^[4]; Klewe, Christoph ^[4]; N’Diaye, Alpha T. ^[4]; Urwin, Brittany T. ^[5]; Mahalingam, Krishnamurthy ^[5]; Howe, Brandon M. ^[5]; Hwang, Harold Y. ^[2]; Arenholz, Elke ^[4]; Suzuki, Yuri ^[2]

Stanford Univ., Stanford, CA (United States); Virginia Polytechnic Inst. and State Univ. (Virginia Tech), Blacksburg, VA (United States)
Stanford Univ., Stanford, CA (United States)
Virginia Polytechnic Inst. and State Univ. (Virginia Tech), Blacksburg, VA (United States)
Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
Air Force Research Lab., Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, OH (United States)

Pure spin currents, unaccompanied by dissipative charge flow, are essential for realizing energy-efficient nanomagnetic information and communications devices. Thin-film magnetic insulators have been identified as promising materials for spin-current technology because they are thought to exhibit lower damping compared with their metallic counterparts. However, insulating behavior is not a sufficient requirement for low damping, as evidenced by the very limited options for low-damping insulators. Here, we demonstrate a new class of nanometer-thick ultralow-damping insulating thin films based on design criteria that minimize orbital angular momentum and structural disorder. Specifically, we show ultralow damping in <20 nm thick spinel-structure magnesium aluminum ferrite (MAFO), in which magnetization arises from Fe³⁺ ions with zero orbital angular momentum. Here, these epitaxial MAFO thin films exhibit a Gilbert damping parameter of ~0.0015 and negligible inhomogeneous linewidth broadening, resulting in narrow half width at half-maximum linewidths of ~0.6 mT around 10 GHz. Our findings offer an attractive thin-film platform for enabling integrated insulating spintronics.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Research Organization:: SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC), Menlo Park, CA (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES) (SC-22)

Grant/Contract Number:: AC02-76SF00515

OSTI ID:: 1470932

Journal Information:: Nano Letters, Journal Name: Nano Letters Journal Issue: 7 Vol. 18; ISSN 1530-6984

Publisher:: American Chemical SocietyCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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