Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya Interaction and Local Exchange Variation in Rare-Earth Transition-Metal Ferrimagnets

Spintronics utilizes the spin of electrons in addition to its charge to manipulate magnetism in thin films. Research in spintronics has the potential to usher in a new wave of technologies, particularly in next-generation racetrack memory storage. These technologies rely on the motion of chiral spin...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Suzuki, Daniel Hiroshi
Other Authors: Beach, Geoffrey S.D.
Format: Thesis
Published: Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2023
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/151361
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4920-8083
_version_ 1826198639775580160
author Suzuki, Daniel Hiroshi
author2 Beach, Geoffrey S.D.
author_facet Beach, Geoffrey S.D.
Suzuki, Daniel Hiroshi
author_sort Suzuki, Daniel Hiroshi
collection MIT
description Spintronics utilizes the spin of electrons in addition to its charge to manipulate magnetism in thin films. Research in spintronics has the potential to usher in a new wave of technologies, particularly in next-generation racetrack memory storage. These technologies rely on the motion of chiral spin textures such as domain walls or skyrmions in order to read and write data. Rare-earth (RE) transition-metal (TM) ferrimagnetic heterostructures are especially promising candidates due to their minimal stray fields and vanishing angular momentum near compensation, and have already exhibited high-speed current-induced domain wall motion and ultra-small skyrmion stability at room temperature. The stability of the chiral spin textures necessary for racetrack and skyrmionic memory is governed by an antisymmetric magnetic exchange interaction known as the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya Interaction (DMI). Unlike the symmetric Heisenberg interaction that favors collinear spin alignment and gives rise to ferromagnetism and antiferromagnetism, the DMI favors canting of spins perpendicular to its neighbors. While DMI has been extensively studied in ferromagnetic systems, little work has been done to quantify its strength in ferrimagnetic systems. In this thesis the compositional dependence of a number of static and dynamic magnetic properties of RE-TM amorphous ferrimagnets necessary for the design of chiral spin texture-based technologies is investigated. We develop a simple method for determining magneto-optical Kerr angles that informs efficient design of magneto-optical Kerr effect microscopes. Additionally, we observe a significant variation in both RE and TM average atomic moment as a function of composition well described by a local environment model as well as substantial variation in magnetization as a function of RE-TM film thickness. Finally, current-induced domain wall motion is used to characterize the spin-transport properties and DMI of RE-TM films.
first_indexed 2024-09-23T11:07:55Z
format Thesis
id mit-1721.1/151361
institution Massachusetts Institute of Technology
last_indexed 2024-09-23T11:07:55Z
publishDate 2023
publisher Massachusetts Institute of Technology
record_format dspace
spelling mit-1721.1/1513612023-08-01T03:57:21Z Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya Interaction and Local Exchange Variation in Rare-Earth Transition-Metal Ferrimagnets Suzuki, Daniel Hiroshi Beach, Geoffrey S.D. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Materials Science and Engineering Spintronics utilizes the spin of electrons in addition to its charge to manipulate magnetism in thin films. Research in spintronics has the potential to usher in a new wave of technologies, particularly in next-generation racetrack memory storage. These technologies rely on the motion of chiral spin textures such as domain walls or skyrmions in order to read and write data. Rare-earth (RE) transition-metal (TM) ferrimagnetic heterostructures are especially promising candidates due to their minimal stray fields and vanishing angular momentum near compensation, and have already exhibited high-speed current-induced domain wall motion and ultra-small skyrmion stability at room temperature. The stability of the chiral spin textures necessary for racetrack and skyrmionic memory is governed by an antisymmetric magnetic exchange interaction known as the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya Interaction (DMI). Unlike the symmetric Heisenberg interaction that favors collinear spin alignment and gives rise to ferromagnetism and antiferromagnetism, the DMI favors canting of spins perpendicular to its neighbors. While DMI has been extensively studied in ferromagnetic systems, little work has been done to quantify its strength in ferrimagnetic systems. In this thesis the compositional dependence of a number of static and dynamic magnetic properties of RE-TM amorphous ferrimagnets necessary for the design of chiral spin texture-based technologies is investigated. We develop a simple method for determining magneto-optical Kerr angles that informs efficient design of magneto-optical Kerr effect microscopes. Additionally, we observe a significant variation in both RE and TM average atomic moment as a function of composition well described by a local environment model as well as substantial variation in magnetization as a function of RE-TM film thickness. Finally, current-induced domain wall motion is used to characterize the spin-transport properties and DMI of RE-TM films. Ph.D. 2023-07-31T19:34:08Z 2023-07-31T19:34:08Z 2023-06 2023-05-19T21:11:05.933Z Thesis https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/151361 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4920-8083 Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) Copyright retained by author(s) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ application/pdf Massachusetts Institute of Technology
spellingShingle Suzuki, Daniel Hiroshi
Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya Interaction and Local Exchange Variation in Rare-Earth Transition-Metal Ferrimagnets
title Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya Interaction and Local Exchange Variation in Rare-Earth Transition-Metal Ferrimagnets
title_full Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya Interaction and Local Exchange Variation in Rare-Earth Transition-Metal Ferrimagnets
title_fullStr Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya Interaction and Local Exchange Variation in Rare-Earth Transition-Metal Ferrimagnets
title_full_unstemmed Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya Interaction and Local Exchange Variation in Rare-Earth Transition-Metal Ferrimagnets
title_short Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya Interaction and Local Exchange Variation in Rare-Earth Transition-Metal Ferrimagnets
title_sort dzyaloshinskii moriya interaction and local exchange variation in rare earth transition metal ferrimagnets
url https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/151361
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4920-8083
work_keys_str_mv AT suzukidanielhiroshi dzyaloshinskiimoriyainteractionandlocalexchangevariationinrareearthtransitionmetalferrimagnets