Nanometer-Thick Yttrium Iron Garnet Films With Extremely Low Damping

Author

Houchen Chang ; Peng Li ; Wei Zhang ; Tao Liu ; Hoffmann, Axel ; Longjiang Deng ; Mingzhong Wu

Author_Institution

Dept. of Phys., Colorado State Univ., Fort Collins, CO, USA

Volume

5

fYear

2014

fDate

2014

Firstpage

1

Lastpage

4

Abstract

Yttrium iron garnet (YIG) films that are in the nanometer thickness range and show extremely low damping are reported. The films were deposited via sputtering at room temperature and were then annealed in O₂ at high temperature. A 22-nm-thick YIG film showed a Gilbert damping constant α = (8.58 ± 0.21) × 10^-5, which represents the lowest damping ever reported for nanometer-thick magnetic films. The film had a gyromagnetic ratio of |γ| = 2.83 MHz/Oe and a saturation induction of 4π M_s = 1766 G, which are both very close to those of single-crystal YIG bulk materials. The film had a very smooth surface, with an rms surface roughness of about 0.13 nm.

Keywords

annealing; damping; garnets; gyromagnetic effect; magnetic thin films; sputter deposition; surface roughness; yttrium compounds; Gilbert damping constant; YIG; annealing; film thickness; gyromagnetic ratio; high temperature effect; nanometer-thick magnetic films; nanometer-thick yttrium iron garnet films; rms surface roughness; single-crystal YIG bulk materials; size 22 nm; smooth surface; sputtering; temperature 293 K to 298 K; Damping; Films; Fitting; Magnetic fields; Magnetic resonance; Sputtering; Current topics; Gilbert damping; ferromagnetic resonance; sputtering; yttrium iron garnet films;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Magnetics Letters, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1949-307X

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/LMAG.2014.2350958

Filename

6882836