Current-driven excitations in symmetric magnetic nanopillars

We study experimentally the current-driven magnetic excitations in symmetric Co/Cu/Co nanopillars. In contrast with all the previous observations where the current of only one polarity is capable of exciting a multilayer system saturated by an externally applied magnetic field, we observe that both polarities of the applied current trigger excitations in a symmetric multilayer. This may indicate that in symmetric structures the current propels high-frequency magnetic oscillations in all magnetic layers. We argue, however, that only one layer is excited in our multilayers but, interestingly, currents of opposite polarities excite different layers. This hypothesis is supported by modeling the spin accumulation in symmetric magnetic multilayers.     

Electron-spin polarization in a non-magnetic heterostructure

The spin dependent electron transmission through a non-magnetic III-V semiconductor symmetric well is studied theoretically so as to investigate the output transmission current polarization at zero magnetic field. Transparency of electron transmission is calculated as a function of electron energy as well as the well width, within the one electron band approximation along with the spin-orbit interaction. Enhanced spin-polarized resonant tunneling in the heterostructure due to Dresselhaus and Rashba spin-orbit coupling induced splitting of the resonant level is observed. We predict that a spin-polarized current spontaneously emerges in this heterostructure. This effect could be employed in the fabrication of spin filters, spin injectors and detectors based on non-magnetic semiconductors.     

Spin asymmetry and s-electron itinerancy in Co/X (X=Co,Cu, V and Ta) multilayers: their dependence on the electronegativity of non-magnetic layers

The electronic structure and magnetic properties of the Co at the Co/X (X=Co, Cu, V and Ta) interfaces have been studied by first-principle discrete variational method. We have found that the spin asymmetry and the s-electron itinerancy of the Co interface layer in the Co/X systems are strongly dependent on the electronegativity of the non-magnetic layers. A large difference in the electronegativity between the non-magnetic and Co layers is unfavorable both for s-electron itinerancy and for the spin exchange split of DOS at the Fermi level. Further study on charge density has revealed that a bond is formed across the Co/V and Co/Ta interfaces.     

InAs/GaSb/AlSb resonant tunneling spin device concepts

We discuss device concepts for creating spin-polarized current sources without external magnetic fields, using non-magnetic 6.1 Å semiconductor resonant tunneling structures. Spin filters, spin pumps, and spin transistors that exploit structural and bulk inversion asymmetries will be examined.     

Time-resolved spin-torque switching and enhanced damping in permalloy/Cu/permalloy spin-valve nanopillars

We report time-resolved measurements of current-induced reversal of a free magnetic layer in Permalloy/Cu/Permalloy elliptical nanopillars at temperatures T=4.2 K to 160 K. Comparison of the data to Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert macrospin simulations of the free layer switching yields numerical values for the spin torque and the Gilbert damping parameters as functions of T. The damping is strongly T dependent, which we attribute to the presence of an antiferromagnetic oxide layer around the perimeter of the Permalloy free layer. This adventitious antiferromagnetic oxide can have a major impact on spin-torque phenomena.     

Current-induced excitations in single cobalt ferromagnetic layer nanopillars

Current-induced excitations in Cu/Co/Cu single ferromagnetic layer nanopillars ( approximately 50 nm in diameter) have been studied experimentally as a function of Co layer thickness at low temperatures for large applied fields perpendicular to the layers. For asymmetric junctions current-induced excitations are observed at high current densities for only one polarity of the current and are absent at the same current densities in symmetric junctions. These observations confirm recent predictions of spin-transfer torque induced spin-wave excitations in single layer junctions with a strong asymmetry in the spin accumulation in the leads.     

Adiabatic charge and spin pumping through interacting quantum dots

In this paper we investigate adiabatic charge and spin pumping through interacting quantum dots using non-equilibrium Green's function techniques and the equation-of-motion method. We treat the electronic correlations inside the dot using a Hartree-Fock approximation and succeed in obtaining closed analytic expressions for the Keldysh Green's functions. These allow us to compute charge and spin currents through the quantum dot. Depending on the parameters of the quantum dot and its coupling to the reservoirs, we show that it can be found in two different regimes: the magnetic regime and the non-magnetic regime. In the magnetic regime we find a non-vanishing spin current in addition to the charge current present in both cases.     

Magnetoimpedance effect of current-annealed CoNiFe/Cu microtubes

A cobalt/nickel/iron (CoNiFe) magnetic layer was electrodeposited on a 50-μm-diameter non-magnetic Cu wire in a sulphate bath using a constant voltage. Electrodeposited CoNiFe composite wires were submitted to current annealing at 540 mA. It was found that annealing time less than 1 min removes internal stresses produced during fabrication and that annealing times longer than 5 min induce circumferential anisotropy. Non-annealed sample showed a magnetoimpedance (MI) ratio of 412%. A maximum MI ratio of 583% was obtained after 1 min of current annealing.     

A spin field effect transistor for low leakage current

In a spin field effect transistor, a magnetic field is inevitably present in the channel because of the ferromagnetic source and drain contacts. This field causes random unwanted spin precession when carriers interact with non-magnetic impurities. The randomized spins lead to a large leakage current when the transistor is in the “off”-state, resulting in significant standby power dissipation. We can counter this effect of the magnetic field by engineering the Dresselhaus spin–orbit interaction in the channel with a backgate. For realistic device parameters, a nearly perfect cancellation is possible, which should result in a low leakage current.     

电流感应磁化翻转效应的改进的系综模型

运用宏观双通道扩散模型研究了赝自旋阀结构中的自旋相关输运过程,考虑到磁化强度矢量的横向分量的影响,建立了自由层磁化强度矢量的动力学方程,利用自旋流连续和化学势差连续作为边界条件.理论计算求解了电流感应磁化翻转效应中的临界电流,解释了铁磁层和非磁层电导率匹配问题和纵向场对电流感应磁化翻转效应中临界电流的影响. 关键词： 赝自旋阀 电导率匹配 自旋转移扭矩 电流感应磁化翻转效应     

Self-consistent calculation of spin transport and magnetization dynamics

A spin-polarized current transfers its spin-angular momentum to a local magnetization, exciting various types of current-induced magnetization dynamics. So far, most studies in this field have focused on the direct effect of spin transport on magnetization dynamics, but ignored the feedback from the magnetization dynamics to the spin transport and back to the magnetization dynamics. Although the feedback is usually weak, there are situations when it can play an important role in the dynamics. In such situations, simultaneous, self-consistent calculations of the magnetization dynamics and the spin transport can accurately describe the feedback. This review describes in detail the feedback mechanisms, and presents recent progress in self-consistent calculations of the coupled dynamics. We pay special attention to three representative examples, where the feedback generates non-local effective interactions for the magnetization after the spin accumulation has been integrated out. Possibly the most dramatic feedback example is the dynamic instability in magnetic nanopillars with a single magnetic layer. This instability does not occur without non-local feedback. We demonstrate that full self-consistent calculations generate simulation results in much better agreement with experiments than previous calculations that addressed the feedback effect approximately. The next example is for more typical spin valve nanopillars. Although the effect of feedback is less dramatic because even without feedback the current can make stationary states unstable and induce magnetization oscillation, the feedback can still have important consequences. For instance, we show that the feedback can reduce the linewidth of oscillations, in agreement with experimental observations. A key aspect of this reduction is the suppression of the excitation of short wavelength spin waves by the non-local feedback. Finally, we consider nonadiabatic electron transport in narrow domain walls. The non-local feedback in these systems leads to a significant renormalization of the effective nonadiabatic spin transfer torque. These examples show that the self-consistent treatment of spin transport and magnetization dynamics is important for understanding the physics of the coupled dynamics and for providing a bridge between the ongoing research fields of current-induced magnetization dynamics and the newly emerging fields of magnetization-dynamics-induced generation of charge and spin currents.     

Numerical Study of Spin-Dependent Transport Through a Magnetic Quantum Wire with Lattice Vacancy

The impact of lattice vacancy on the spin dependent transport properties of a magnetic-quantum wire (MQW) has been investigated. A simple tight binding Hamiltonian to describe the model is used, where the quantum wire is attached to two semi-infinite one-dimensional non-magnetic electrodes. Based on the Landauer–Buttiker formalism all the calculations are performed numerically which describe two-terminal conductance. The results suggest that in presence of vacancy the transmission reduces and vacancy creates quasilocalized states around zero energy (E _f = 0). In order to investigate spin-filtering effect of (MQW), the degree of polarization in the presence and absences of vacancy has been studied. Also it is found that the effect of vacancy decreases when the size of MQW increases. The results show that a magnetic quantum wire can be used as a spin filter. The application of the predicted results may be useful in designing molecular spin-polarized transistors in the future.     

Spin Wave Spectra in a Ferromagnetic/Non-magnetic Superlatt ice with Antiparallel Magnetization

The transfer-matrix method is employed to investigate the spin waves in a ferromagnetic/non-magnetic superlat tice with an antiferromagnetic coupling between interfacial ferromagnetic layers across a non-magnetic spacer layers and the an tiparaUel magnetizations between neighboring ferromagnetic films. The dispersion relation of the spin waves is obtained. The effects of the thickness of the magnetic layers, the antiferromagnetic coupling strength and concentration of magnetic atoms at the interface on the spin wave spectra are discussed in detail.     

Current-driven destabilization of both collinear configurations in asymmetric spin valves

Spin-transfer torque in spin valves usually destabilizes one of the collinear configurations (either parallel or antiparallel) and stabilizes the second one. Apart from this, balance of the spin-transfer and damping torques can lead to steady precessional modes. In this Letter we show that in some asymmetric nanopillars, spin current can destabilize both parallel and antiparallel configurations. As a result, stationary precessional modes can occur at zero magnetic field. The corresponding phase diagram as well as frequencies of the precessional modes have been calculated in the framework of macrospin model. The relevant spin-transfer torque has been calculated in terms of the macroscopic model based on spin diffusion equations.     

Extrinsic spin Hall effect induced by iridium impurities in copper

We study the extrinsic spin Hall effect induced by Ir impurities in Cu by injecting a pure spin current into a CuIr wire from a lateral spin valve structure. While no spin Hall effect is observed without Ir impurity, the spin Hall resistivity of CuIr increases linearly with the impurity concentration. The spin Hall angle of CuIr, (2.1±0.6)% throughout the concentration range between 1% and 12%, is practically independent of temperature. These results represent a clear example of predominant skew scattering extrinsic contribution to the spin Hall effect in a nonmagnetic alloy.     

Generation of spin current by Coulomb drag

Coulomb drag between two quantum wires is exponentially sensitive to the mismatch of their electronic densities. The application of a magnetic field can compensate this mismatch for electrons of opposite spin directions in different wires. The resulting enhanced momentum transfer leads to the conversion of the charge current in the active wire to the spin current in the passive wire.     

Magnetically stabilized surface alloys

We investigate the interrelation of magnetism and stability of ultrathin magnetic films and come to the conclusion that under certain circumstances there should exist magnetically stabilized two-dimensional surface alloys. We present ab initio results for the formation energy and the interdiffusion energy of Cu(001)c(2 × 2)3d surface alloy films. Results based on the density functional theory in the local spin density approximation (LSDA) indicate the existence of a thermodynamically stable surface alloy: Cu(001)c(2 × 2) Mn. Although in detail, the results depend on the Cu substrate, the trends presented below have an universal character. Therefore, Cu(100)c(2 × 2) Mn is only an example of a much wider class of magnetic surface alloys. Recently, several of these surface alloys have been found experimentally, showing an unexpectingly large structural corrugation of the surface alloy atoms. This will be discussed as a result of a large magneto-volume effect. We found in addition a non-magnetic surface alloy Ti/Cu(001), which is not yet confirmed experimentally. Total energy calculations were carried out using the full-potential linearized augmented planewave (FLAPW) method in film geometry.     

Transport properties and electronic structure of epitaxial tunnel junctions

We present ab initio calculations for the electronic ground-state and transport properties of epitaxial Fe/semiconductor/Fe (0 0 1) tunnel junctions. The ground state properties are determined by the ab initio Screened KKR Green's function method and the transport properties by a Green's function formulation of the Landauer–Büttiker formalism. We focus on tunnel junctions with a semiconducting ZnSe barrier and compare them to results for junctions with Si and GaAs barriers. We comment on the presence of metal-induced gap states (MIGS) in the semiconductor, the spin polarization of which strongly depends on the nature of the barrier. We investigate furthermore the influence of one atomic layer at the interface of a non-magnetic metal (Cu, Ag, Al) and of a magnetic 3d transition metal.     

Spin torque transfer structure with new spin switching configurations

Spin torque transfer structures with new spin switching configurations are proposed, fabricated and investigated in this paper. The non-uniform current-induced magnetization switching is implemented based on both GMR and MTJ nano devices. The proposed new spin transfer structure has a hybrid free layer that consists of a layer with conductive channels (magnetic) and non-conductive matrix (non-magnetic) and traditional free layer(s). Two mechanisms, a higher local current density by nano-current-channels and a non-uniform magnetization switching (reversal domain nucleation and growth) by a magnetic nanocomposite structure, contribute in reducing the switching current density. The critical switching current density for the new spin transfer structure is reduced to one third of the typical value for the normal structure. It can be expected to have one order of magnitude or more reduction for the critical current density if the optimization of materials and fabrication processes could be done further. Meanwhile, the thermal stability of this new spin transfer structure is not degraded, which may solve the long-standing scaling problem for magnetic random access memory (MRAM). This spin transfer structure, with the proposed and demonstrated new spin switching configurations, not only provides a solid approach for the practical application of spin transfer devices but also forms a unique platform for researchers to explore the non-uniform current-induced switching process.