Abstract

The observation of perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA) at MgO/Fe interfaces boosted the development of spintronic devices based on ultrathin ferromagnetic layers. Yet, magnetization reversal in the standard magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs) with competing PMA and in-plane anisotropies remains unclear. Here we report on the field induced nonvolatile broken symmetry magnetization reorientation transition from the in-plane to the perpendicular (out of plane) state at temperatures below 50 K. The samples were 10 nm thick Fe in MgO/Fe(100)/MgO as stacking components of V/MgO/Fe/MgO/Fe/Co double barrier MTJs with an area of 20 × 20 μm2. Micromagnetic simulations with PMA and different second order anisotropies at the opposite Fe/MgO interfaces qualitatively reproduce the observed broken symmetry spin reorientation transition. Our findings open the possibilities to develop multistate epitaxial spintronics based on competing magnetic anisotropies.

Details

Title
Symmetry broken spin reorientation transition in epitaxial MgO/Fe/MgO layers with competing anisotropies
Author
Martínez, Isidoro 1 ; Tiusan, Coriolan 2 ; Hehn, Michel 3 ; Chshiev, Mairbek 4   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Aliev, Farkhad G 1 

1  Dpto. Fisica de la Materia Condensada, IFIMAC and INC, Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain 
2  Center of Superconductivity, Spintronics and Surface Science (C4S), Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, Cluj-Napoca, Romania 
3  Institut Jean Lamour, Nancy-Université Vandoeuvre Les Nancy Cedex, Nancy, France 
4  Univ. Grenoble Alpes, CEA, CNRS, INAC-SPINTEC, Grenoble, France 
Pages
1-11
Publication year
2018
Publication date
Jun 2018
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
e-ISSN
20452322
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-27720-7
ProQuest document ID
2058239327
Copyright
© 2018. This work is published under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.