Wells, AWJ orcid.org/0000-0001-5885-6336, Shepley, PM orcid.org/0000-0003-1240-593X, Marrows, CH orcid.org/0000-0003-4812-6393 et al. (1 more author) (2017) Effect of interfacial intermixing on the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction in Pt/Co/Pt. Physical Review B - Condensed Matter and Materials Physics, 95 (5). 054428. ISSN 1098-0121
Abstract
We study the effect of sputter-deposition conditions, namely, substrate temperature and chamber base pressure, upon the interface quality of epitaxial Pt/Co/Pt thin films with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy. Here we define interface quality to be the inverse of the sum in quadrature of roughness and intermixing. We find that samples with the top Co/Pt layers grown at 250 C exhibit a local maximum in roughness intermixing and that the interface quality is better for lower or higher deposition temperatures, up to 400 C, above which the interface quality degrades. Imaging the expansion of magnetic domains in an in-plane field using wide-field Kerr microscopy, we determine the interfacial Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI) in films in the deposition temperature range 100 C to 300 C. We find that the net DMI increases as the difference between top and bottom Co interface quality increases. Furthermore, for sufficiently low base pressures, the net DMI increases linearly with the deposition temperature, indicating that fine-tuning of the DMI may be achieved via the deposition conditions.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2017 American Physical Society. Reproduced in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Engineering & Physical Sciences (Leeds) > School of Chemical & Process Engineering (Leeds) The University of Leeds > Faculty of Engineering & Physical Sciences (Leeds) > School of Physics and Astronomy (Leeds) > Condensed Matter (Leeds) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number EPSRC EP/M000923/1 EPSRC EP/I011668/1 EPSRC EP/K003127/1 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 20 Mar 2017 10:41 |
Last Modified: | 23 Jun 2023 22:23 |
Published Version: | https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.95.054428 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | American Physical Association |
Identification Number: | 10.1103/PhysRevB.95.054428 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:112379 |