Hard magnetic CoCr layer in ferromagnetic tunnel junctions

In magnetic tunnel junctions a highly spin-polarizing layer is usually exchange biased by an antiferromagnetic layer, an artificial antiferromagnetic layer system or a combination of both, while the magnetically soft layer is free to rotate. The use of a single layer of a hard magnetic material is rarely investigated up to now. In this paper, we present the electric and magnetic properties of tunnel junctions with a hard magnetic Co₈₃Cr₁₇ layer. The soft magnetic electrode consists of either a single Co layer or a Co/Ni₈₀Fe₂₀ bilayer. The magnetic anisotropy and coercive field H_C of the CoCr layer depend on its thickness and the kind of the bottom layer (Cu or Ta) and can vary from H_C=50–700 Oe. It is found that a thin Co cap layer also influences the hysteretic behavior. Furthermore, only small changes after annealing up to 450°C promise a high thermal stability for the application in magnetic tunnel junctions. Measurements of the tunnel magnetoresistance on large area junctions, however, show a strong magnetic coupling of the hard and soft electrodes.     

Monte Carlo study of magnetization reversal in the model of a hard/soft magnetic bilayer

Magnetization reversal in the model of a hard/soft magnetic bilayer under the action of an external magnetic field has been investigated by the Monte Carlo method. Calculations have been performed for three systems: (i) the model without a soft-magnetic layer (hard-magnetic layer), (ii) the model with a soft-magnetic layer of thickness 25 atomic layers (predominantly exchange-coupled system), and (iii) with 50 (weak exchange coupling) atomic layers. The effect of a soft-magnetic phase on the magnetization reversal of the magnetic bilayer and on the formation of a 1D spin spring in the magnetic bilayer has been demonstrated. An inf lection that has been detected on the arch of the hysteresis loop only for the system with weak exchange coupling is completely determined by the behavior of the soft layer in the external magnetic field. The critical fields of magnetization reversal decrease with increasing thickness of the soft phase.     

Magnetic properties of Co-P-based trilayers

The magnetic properties of a film trilayer consisting of hard magnetic and soft magnetic Co-P layers separated by a nonmagnetic Ni-P spacer have been studied. The features of the hysteresis shift relative to the zero exchange magnetic field and of the coercivity of the soft magnetic layer in the dependence on thicknesses of the hard magnetic layer and spacer have been considered. The dynamic changes in the shift of the hysteresis of the soft magnetic layer versus the magnetization reversal time after saturation of the hard magnetic layer have been found and investigated.     

Spin field emission and state switching in a magnetic tunnel junction

The phenomena of spin tunneling and spin torque transfer between magnetic layers of a tunnel spin-valve setup under weak and strong field emissions of spin-polarized electrons are considered. Bifurcational features of changes in the macrospin states under the impact of a tunnel current are discussed for varying directions of the spin-polarization vector.     

Observation of the interaction between Landau levels of different two-dimensional subbands in GaAs in a normal magnetic field

Tunnel current measurements between strongly disordered two-dimensional electron systems in a perpendicular magnetic field are presented. Two-dimensional electron accumulation layers are formed by an extremely narrow layer of Si donors (Si delta doping) in GaAs on either side of an AlGaAs tunnel barrier. Strong interaction between Landau levels of the two-dimensional subbands in each accumulation layer is observed as an anticrossing of the related peak positions in the tunnel current vs. voltage curves as a function of magnetic field. The splitting of the interacting Landau levels is about 10 meV, which cannot be explained by nonparabolicity of the conduction band in GaAs. A possible reason for the observed interaction connected with the collective excitations in the 2DES is discussed.     

Bose condensation of excitons in two-layer electronic systems in the absence of magnetic field

A high narrow peak of interlayer differential tunnel conductivity is observed at low temperatures in heterostructures with two closely located electronic layers in the absence of magnetic field. The analysis of experimental results suggests that this peak is due to the interlayer phase coherence that arises in the system as a result of the Bose condensation of interlayer excitons (electron-hole pairs) belonging to different layers, in accordance with the recent theoretical predictions.     

Exciton spectra of semiconductor superlattices in a parallel magnetic field

Low-temperature photoluminescence and photoluminescence excitation spectra of GaAs/AlGaAs semiconductor superlattices having different potential barrier widths (b=20, 30, 50, and 200 Å), i.e., degrees of tunnel coupling between quantum wells, are studied in magnetic fields up to 5 T oriented parallel and perpendicular to the layers of the structure. The changes in the qualitative character of the photoluminescence excitation spectra observed in a parallel magnetic field with increasing tunnel transparency of the barrier correspond to a transition from a quasi-two-dimensional to a quasi-three-dimensional electronic spectrum as a miniband develops in the superlattice. In the photoluminescence excitation spectra of the superlattice with b=50 Å, as the parallel magnetic field is increased, a new line appears in the violet wing of the spatially indirect exciton excitation line, which is absent in a perpendicular field. A similar line was also observed to arise in the photoluminescence spectra. It is shown that the indirect exciton luminescence line can be suppressed by both parallel and perpendicular magnetic fields.     

Observation of the low-temperature peak in the interlayer tunneling conductance in bilayer electron systems in the absence of the magnetic field

A high narrow peak in the interlayer differential tunnel conductance has been observed in heterostructures with two closely located electron layers at low temperatures. Analysis of the experimental results suggests that this peak is due to the interlayer phase coherence, which appears in the system under investigation owing to the Bose condensation of indirect excitons, i.e., pairs of electrons and holes from different layers in the absence of the magnetic field.     

Anomalous Hall effect in magnetic sandwiches with a dielectric spacer

Quantum-statistical calculations are presented for the anomalous Hall effect in a magnetic sandwich with a tunnel junction across a thin dielectric spacer. The tunneling current flows across the junction perpendicular to the plane of the layers while the Hall component of the current lies in this plane. The Kubo formalism and the Green’s functions are used to calculate the contribution of skew scattering to the Hall conductivity. The classical size effect in the Hall conductivity of this structure is studied and two new effects are observed. One is associated with the dependence of the effective electric field in the magnet on the transparency of the dielectric potential barrier for electrons when the current flows perpendicular to the layers of the structure and may be called “ geometric”. The other occurs as a result of the influence of the strong electric field in the dielectric on the electron motion in the adjacent magnetic layers.     

Magnetization reversal mechanism of magnetic tunnel junctions

Using the ion-beam-sputtering technique,we have fabricated Fe/Al2O3/Fe magnetic tunnelling junctions (MTJs).We have observed double-peaked shapes of curves,which have a level summit and a symmetrical feature,showing the magnetoresistance of the junction as a function of applied field.We have measured the tunnel conductance of MTJs which have insulating layers of different thicknesses.We have studied the dependence of the magnetoresistance of MTJs on tunnel conductance.The microstructures of hard-and soft-magnetic layers and interfaces of ferromagnets and insulators were probed.Analysing the influence of MJT microstructures,including those having clusters or/and granules in magnetic and non-magnetic films,a magnetization reversal mechanism(MRM) is proposed,which suggests that the MRM of tunnelling junctions may be explained by using a group-by-group reversal model of magnetic moments of the mesoscopical particles.We discuss the influence of MTJ microstructures,including those with clusters or/and granules in the ferromagnetic and non-magnetic films,on the MRM.     

Tunnel injection into GaAs/AlGaAs long period superlattices

Electron injection through a tunnel barrier into a long period GaAs/AlGaAs superlattice is investigated. Seven negative differential resistance (NDR) regions are observed, resulting from resonant tunneling into the first well of the superlattice. Their positions can be quantitatively accounted for by considering the distribution of the electric field in the depletion region and the tunnel barrier. Upon application of a magnetic field parallel to the layers, the NDR's are shifted and weakened, which can be explained in terms of conservation of energy and canonical momentum. Furthermore, optical phonon generated conductance oscillations are observed although the depletion region is punctuated by the superlattice structure.     

Comparison of media properties between hard/soft stacked composite and capping layer perpendicular recording media

The effect of soft layer thickness (t_Soft) of CoTaZr–SiO₂ and low Pt-containing CoCrPtO layers on media properties in hard/soft (H/S) stacked media is compared to media properties in conventional capping layer (CL) media. Coercivity and coercivity squareness in H/S stacked media continuously decrease with increasing t_Soft, while they increase in CL media. H/S stacked media with CoTaZr–SiO₂ layers having higher saturation magnetization and in-plane magnetic anisotropy constant exhibit stronger demagnetization effect. Compared to CL media, H/S stacked media with CoCrPtO soft layers improve signal-to-noise ratio and magnetic write width. However, the use of a relatively soft layer deteriorates adjacent track erasure and does not improve media writeability due to compensation effect between softer and harder layers to be used. These phenomena can be understood as undesirable side effects of a soft layer: higher demagnetization field and larger lattice mismatch.     

Electrical control of valley and spin polarized current and tunneling magnetoresistance in a silicene-based magnetic tunnel junction

We investigate the electronic transport in a silicene-based ferromagnetic metal/ferromagnetic insulator/ferromagnetic metal tunnel junction. The results show that the valley and spin transports are strongly dependent on local application of a vertical electric field and effective magnetization configurations of the ferromagnetic layers. In particular, it is found that the fully valley and spin polarized currents can be realized by tuning the external electric field. Furthermore, we also demonstrate that the tunneling magnetoresistance ratio in such a full magnetic junction of silicene is very sensitive to the electric field modulation.     

Unidirectional anisotropy in ferromagnetic-ferrimagnetic film structures

A mechanism of unidirectional anisotropy formation in an exchange-coupled ferromagnetic-ferrimagnetic film structure with orthogonal effective magnetizations in the layers is investigated. The reason for unidirectional anisotropy is the magnetic heterogeneity of the ferrimagnetic layer in the compensation range. Magnetization reversal in the magnetically soft layer of an (REE–transition metal)/NiFe film structure is discussed based on a model of uniform rotation of magnetization. It is found that unidirectional anisotropy sharply decreases the magnetic noise level in the magnetically soft layer. The field of application of these materials is outlined.     

Optical properties of one-dimensional soft photonic crystals with ferrofluids

We review the recent theoretical study on the optical properties of one-dimensional soft photonic crystals (1D SPCs) with ferrofluids. The proposed structure is composed of alternating ferrofluid layers and dielectric layers. For the ferrofluid, single domain ferromagnetic nanoparticles can align to a chain under the stimuli of an external magnetic field, thus changing the microstructure of the system. Meanwhile, nonlinear optical responses in ferrofluids are also briefly reviewed.     

Field cooling induced changes in the antiferromagnetic structure of NiO films

The magnetic anisotropy in antiferromagnetic 500 A thick NiO films, before and after the establishment of an exchange bias field with Co84Fe16 ferromagnetic layers, was measured using magnetic linear dichroism in soft x-ray absorption. Both <111> textured NiO and untextured NiO films show exchange-bias induced in-plane magnetic anisotropy of nearly equal magnitude and with the Ni moment axis being nearly parallel to the exchange bias field direction. These results represent the first observation of the key step in the exchange biasing process, namely, repopulation of the antiferromagnetic domains whose magnetization axis is closest to the exchange bias field direction.     

Remanence Characteristic of Nanostructure of Hard／Soft Magnetic Multilayered Systems

The relation between microscopic properties (e.e.,layer thickness,easy axis orientation) and the macroscopic magnetic properties such as remanent magnetization of the ferromagnetic multilayer system is investigated based on a simple micromagnet approach.We concentrate on a multilayer design with periodic boundary condition,where alternating soft/hard layers build a nanostructured multilayer.For any easy axis direction in the soft and hard layers a simple explicit expression of remanence of the system has been derived analytically.We find that the remanence clearly depends on the thickness of the soft magnetic layer and is nearly independent of the thickness of hard magnetic layer.On the other hand,the remanence increases upon reducing the angle enclosed by the saturation magnetization and the easy axis directions of soft magnetic layer.However,it is unsensitive to the easy axis direction of hard magnetic layer,but there exists a maximum remanence for a certain easy axis direction of hard magnetic layer.     

Spectroscopy of soft modes and quantum phase transitions in coupled electron bilayers

Strongly correlated two-dimensional electrons in coupled semiconductor bilayers display remarkable broken symmetry many-body states under accessible and controllable experimental conditions. In the case of continuous quantum phase transitions (QPTs), soft collective modes drive the transformations that link distinct ground states of the electron double layers. In this paper we consider results showing that resonant inelastic light scattering methods detect soft collective modes of the double layers and probe their evolution with temperature and magnetic field. The light scattering experiments offer venues of research of fundamental interactions and continuous QPTs in low-dimensional electron liquids.     

Electronic states on the surface of graphite

Graphite consists of graphene layers in an AB (Bernal) stacking arrangement. The introduction of defects can reduce the coupling between the top graphene layers and the bulk crystal producing new electronic states that reflect the degree of coupling. We employ low temperature high magnetic field scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and spectroscopy (STS) to access these states and study their evolution with the degree of coupling. STS in magnetic field directly probes the dimensionality of electronic states. Thus two-dimensional states produce a discrete series of Landau levels while three-dimensional states form Landau bands providing a clear distinction between completely decoupled top layers and ones that are coupled to the substrate. We show that the completely decoupled layers are characterized by a single sequence of Landau levels with square-root dependence on field and level index indicative of massless Dirac fermions. In contrast weakly coupled bilayers produce special sequences reflecting the degree of coupling, and multilayers produce sequences reflecting the coexistence of massless and massive Dirac fermions. In addition we show that the graphite surface is soft and that an STM tip can be quite invasive when brought too close to the surface and that there is a characteristic tip-sample distance beyond which the effect of sample-tip interaction is negligible.