Enhanced Gilbert damping and role of metallic interfaces in large-angle spin precession Christian Stamm, Ioan Tudosa, Frank King, Hans-Christof Siegmann, Joachim Stöhr Stanford.

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Transcript Enhanced Gilbert damping and role of metallic interfaces in large-angle spin precession Christian Stamm, Ioan Tudosa, Frank King, Hans-Christof Siegmann, Joachim Stöhr Stanford.

Enhanced Gilbert damping and role of metallic interfaces
in large-angle spin precession
Christian Stamm, Ioan Tudosa, Frank King, Hans-Christof Siegmann, Joachim Stöhr
Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory and Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, Stanford, USA
Georg Woltersdorf and Bret Heinrich, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, Canada
Andreas Vaterlaus, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich, Switzerland
Exciting the magnetization
Single Fe layer
Au 10 layers
Fe 10 or 15 layers
constant current
Epitaxial growth on GaAs(001)
GaAs
alignment parallel to field
FMR characterization:
damping a = 0.004
also measured anisotropies
pulsed current (5 ps)
MOKE hysteresis loop
magnetized in-plane [110]
very soft! (HC = 12 Oe)
precessional switching
The magnetic field pulse
4
60
GaAs
• pattern more complicated
bottom layer
40 ML Fe
0
40
80
4-fold wins over uniaxial:
• easy-axis rotated ~45°
50 mm
M0
2
20
Fe 40 layers
top layer
15 ML Fe
huge pattern is consistent
with low anisotropy
(SEM with Polarization Analysis)
one magnetic field pulse
10 ML Fe / GaAs (001)
0
Au 40 layers
SEMPA images
SEMPA images of M
6
-20
Au 10 layers
Fe 15 layers
Magnetic imaging
8
B [Tesla]
Generated by
relativistic electron
bunch at the Final
Focus Test Beam of
the Stanford Linear
Accelerator
Double Fe layer
100
t [ps]
Peak field of 7.5 Tesla
10 mm away from center,
falling off with 1/R
1 mm
50 mm
Relaxation
Dynamic motion of M
in-plane M
M
After field pulse:
• field pulse lifts M out of
plane, deposits energy
as demagnetizing field
damping causes dissipation
of energy during precession
• precession switches M
6
• relaxation by damping
fit using LLG equation:
anisitropies same as FMR
but damping a = 0.017
4x larger
4
E/Ku
H
lines of constant
(initial) torque
MxH
50 mm
• Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert:
1 dM
1 a 
dM 
 MH 
M



 dt
 M
dt 
2
10 ML Fe
15 ML Fe
0
0
1
2
3
Number of precessions
4
(energy barrier for switching: KU)
Conclusions
• Strong, ultrashort field pulse excites magnetization
precession and relaxation
• Ultrathin Fe layer: damping 4x larger than in FMR
possibly due to spin-currents across interface into
paramagnet (enhanced for large-angle precession)
Tserkovnyak, Brataas, Bauer
Phys Rev Lett 88, 117601 and B 66, 060404 (2002)
• Fe double layer: complex pattern
dynamic exchange coupling via spin currents?
Heinrich et al., Phys Rev Lett 90, 187601 (2003)