Exquisite growth control and magnetic properties of yttrium iron garnet thin films
A layer-by-layer epitaxial growth up to 227 atomic layers of ferrimagnetic insulator yttrium iron garnet (YIG) thin films is achieved on (110)-oriented gadolinium gallium garnet substrates using pulsed laser deposition. Atomically smooth terraces are observed on YIG films up to 100 nm in thickness. The root-mean-square roughness is as low as 0.067 nm. The easy-axis lies in the film plane, indicating the dominance of shape anisotropy. For (110)-YIG films, there is well-defined two-fold in-plane anisotropy, with the easiest axis directed along [001]. The Gilbert damping constant is determined to be 1.0 104 for 100 nm thick films.
Among van der Waals (vdW) layered ferromagnets, Fe3GeTe2 (FGT) is an excellent candidate material to form FGT/heavy metal heterostructures for studying the effect of spin−orbit torques (SOT).
We report a longitudinal spin Seebeck effect (SSE) study in epitaxially grown FeF2ð110Þ antiferromagnetic (AFM) thin films with strong uniaxial anisotropy over the temperature range of 3.8–250 K…
Electrical currents in a magnetic-insulator/heavy-metal heterostructure can induce two simultaneous effects, namely, spin Hall magnetoresistance (SMR) on the heavy-metal side and spin-orbit…