Les nano-Oscillateurs à transfert de spin (STNOs) sont des dispositifs capables d'émettre une onde hyperfréquence lorsqu'ils sont pompés par un courant polarisé grâce au couple de transfert de spin. Bien qu'ils offrent de nombreux avantages (agilité spectrale, intégrabilité, etc.) pour les applications, leur puissance d'émission et leur pureté spectrale sont en général faibles. Une stratégie pour améliorer ces propriétés est de synchroniser plusieurs oscillateurs entre eux. Une première étape est de comprendre la synchronisation d'un STNO unique à une source externe. Pour cela, nous avons étudié une vanne de spin Cu60|NiFe15|Cu10|NiFe4| Au25 (épaisseurs en nm) de section circulaire de 200 nm. Dans l'état saturé perpendiculaire (champ appliqué > 0.8 T), nous avons déterminé la nature du mode qui auto-Oscille et son couplage à une source externe grâce à un microscope de force par résonance magnétique (MRFM). Seul un champ micro-Onde uniforme permet de synchroniser le mode oscillant de la couche fine car il possède la bonne symétrie spatiale, au contraire du courant micro-Onde traversant l'échantillon. Ce même échantillon a ensuite été étudié sous faible champ perpendiculaire, les deux couches magnétiques étant alors dans l'état vortex. Dans ce cas, il est possible d'exciter un mode de grande cohérence (F/ ∆F >15000) avec une largeur de raie inférieure à 100 kHz. En analysant le contenu harmonique du spectre, nous avons déterminé que le couplage non-Linéaire amplitude-Phase du mode excité est quasi nul, ce qui explique la grande pureté spectrale observée, et qu'en parallèle, la fréquence d'oscillation reste ajustable sur une grande gamme grâce au champ d'Oersted créé par le courant injecté. De plus, la synchronisation de ce mode à une source de champ micro-Onde est très robuste, la largeur de raie mesurée diminuant de plus de cinq ordres de grandeur par rapport au régime autonome. Nous concluons de cette étude que le couplage magnéto-Dipolaire entre STNOs à base de vortex est très prometteur pour obtenir une synchronisation mutuelle, le champ dipolaire rayonné par un STNO sur ses voisins jouant alors le rôle de la source micro-Onde. Nous sommes donc passés à l'étape suivante, à savoir la mesure expérimentale de deux STNOs similaires séparés latéralement de 100 nm. En jouant sur les différentes configurations de polarités des vortex, nous avons réussi à observer la synchronisation mutuelle de ces deux oscillateurs. / Spin transfer nano-Oscillators (STNOs) are nanoscale devices capable of generating high frequency microwave signals through spin momentum transfer. Although they offer decisive advantages compared to existing technology (spectral agility, integrability, etc.), their emitted power and spectral purity are quite poor. In view of their applications, a promising strategy to improve the coherence and increase the emitted microwave power of these devices is to mutually synchronize several of them. A first step is to understand the synchronization of a single STNO to an external source. For this, we have studied a circular nanopillar of diameter 200~nm patterned from a Cu60|Py15|Cu10|Py4|Au25 stack, where thicknesses are in nm. In the saturated state (bias magnetic field > 0.8 T), we have identified the auto-Oscillating mode and its coupling to an external source by using a magnetic resonance force microscope (MRFM). Only the uniform microwave field applied perpendicularly to the bias field is efficient to synchronize the STNO because it shares the spatial symmetry of the auto-Oscillation mode, in contrast to the microwave current passing through the device. The same sample was then studied under low perpendicular magnetic field, with the two magnetic layers in the vortex state. In this case, it is possible to excite a highly coherent mode (F/∆F>15000) with a linewidth below 100 kHz. By analyzing the harmonic content of the spectrum, we have determined that the non-Linear amplitude-Phase coupling of the excited mode is almost vanishing, which explains the high spectral purity observed. Moreover, the oscillation frequency can still be widely tuned thanks to the Oersted field created by the dc current. We have also shown that the synchronization of this mode to a microwave field source is very robust, the generation linewidth decreasing by more than five orders of magnitude compared to the autonomous regime. From these findings we conclude that the magneto-Dipolar interaction is promising to achieve mutual coupling of vortex based STNOs, the dipolar field from a neighboring oscillator playing the role of the microwave source. We have thus experimentally measured a system composed of two STNOs laterally separated by 100 nm. By varying the different configurations of vortex polarities, we have observed the mutual synchronization of these two oscillators.

No description available.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-12-17T15:15:01Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 MariaGDS_TESE.pdf: 10253325 bytes, checksum: a11a4b9893c49f999607f55737b5aded (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-07-28 / Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cient?fico e Tecnol?gico / The effect of confinement on the magnetic structure of vortices of dipolar coupled ferromagnetic nanoelements is an issue of current interest, not only for academic reasons, but also for the potential impact in a number of promising applications. Most applications, such as nano-oscillators for wireless data transmission, benefit from the possibility of tailoring the vortex core magnetic pattern. We report a theoretical study of vortex nucleation in pairs of coaxial iron and Permalloy cylinders, with diameters ranging from 21nm to 150nm, and 12nm and 21nm thicknesses, separated by a non-magnetic layer. 12nm thick iron and Permalloy isolated (single) cylinders do not hold a vortex, and 21nm isolated cylinders hold a vortex. Our results indicate that one may tailor the magnetic structure of the vortices, and the relative chirality, by selecting the thickness of the non-magnetic spacer and the values of the cylinders diameters and thicknesses. Also, the dipolar interaction may induce vortex formation in pairs of 12nm thick nanocylinders and inhibit the formation of vortices in pairs of 21nm thick nanocylinders. These new phases are formed according to the value of the distance between the cylinderes. Furthermore, we show that the preparation route may control relative chirality and polarity of the vortex pair. For instance: by saturating a pair of Fe 81nm diameter, 21nm thickness cylinders, along the crystalline anisotropy direction, a pair of 36nm core diameter vortices, with same chirality and polarity is prepared. By saturating along the perpendicular direction, one prepares a 30nm diameter core vortex pair, with opposite chirality and opposite polarity. We also present a theoretical discussion of the impact of vortices on the thermal hysteresis of a pair of interface biased elliptical iron nanoelements, separated by an ultrathin nonmagnetic insulating layer. We have found that iron nanoelements exchange coupled to a noncompensated NiO substrate, display thermal hysteresis at room temperature, well below the iron Curie temperature. The thermal hysteresis consists in different sequences of magnetic states in the heating and cooling branches of a thermal loop, and originates in the thermal reduction of the interface field, and on the rearrangements of the magnetic structure at high temperatures, 5 produce by the strong dipolar coupling. The width of the thermal hysteresis varies from 500 K to 100 K for lateral dimensions of 125 nm x 65 nm and 145 nm x 65 nm. We focus on the thermal effects on two particular states: the antiparallel state, which has, at low temperatures, the interface biased nanoelement with the magnetization aligned with the interface field and the second nanoelement aligned opposite to the interface field; and in the parallel state, which has both nanoelements with the magnetization aligned with the interface field at low temperatures. We show that the dipolar interaction leads to enhanced thermal stability of the antiparallel state, and reduces the thermal stability of the parallel state. These states are the key phases in the application of pairs of ferromagnetic nanoelements, separated by a thin insulating layer, for tunneling magnetic memory cells. We have found that for a pair of 125nm x 65nm nanoelements, separated by 1.1nm, and low temperature interface field strength of 5.88kOe, the low temperature state (T = 100K) consists of a pair of nearly parallel buckle-states. This low temperature phase is kept with minor changes up to T= 249 K when the magnetization is reduced to 50% of the low temperature value due to nucleation of a vortex centered around the middle of the free surface nanoelement. By further increasing the temperature, there is another small change in the magnetization due to vortex motion. Apart from minor changes in the vortex position, the high temperature vortex state remains stable, in the cooling branch, down to low temperatures. We note that wide loop thermal hysteresis may pose limits on the design of tunneling magnetic memory cells / Os efeitos de confinamento e o forte acoplamento dipolar na estrutura de v?rtices de nano-elementos ferromagn?ticos ? um tema de interesse atual, n?o apenas pelo valor puramente acad?mico, mas tamb?m pelo impacto em grande n?mero de dispositivos da ?rea de spintr?nica. Muitos dispositivos, como nano-osciladores para transmiss?o de dados sem fio, podem tirar grande proveito da possibilidade de controlar o padr?o magn?tico do n?cleo do v?rtice magn?tico. Relatamos um estudo te?rico da nuclea??o de v?rtices em um par de cilindros coaxiais de ferro e de Permalloy, com di?metros desde 21nm at? 150nm e espessuras de 12nm e de 21nm, separados por uma fina camada n?o-magn?tica. Cilindros isolados de ferro e Permalloy com espessura de 12nm n?o permitem a forma??o de v?rtices, enquanto que cilindros de espessura de 21nm possuem v?rtices quando isolados em reman?ncia. Nossos resultados indicam que ? poss?vel controlar a estrutura magn?tica dos v?rtices, bem como a chiralidade e polaridade relativa dos dois v?rtices, pela escolha apropriada dos valores dos di?metros e da separa??o dos dois cilindros ferromagn?ticos. Dependendo do valor da separa??o entre os cilindros, a intera??o dipolar pode induzir a forma??o de v?rtices em pares de cilindros de espessura de 12nm e inibir a forma??o de v?rtices em pares de cilindros de 21nm de espessura. Al?m disso, mostramos que a rota de prepara??o do estado magn?tico em campo nulo, pode ser usada para determinar a chiralidade e polaridade relativa dos dois v?rtices. Por exemplo: partindo da satura??o da magnetiza??o de um par de cilindros de ferro com di?metro de 81nm e espessura de 21nm, na dire??o do eixo f?cil da anisotropia uniaxial do ferro, resulta um par de v?rtices com n?cleo de 36nm, mesma chiralidade e mesma polaridade. Partindo do estado saturado em uma dire??o no plano e perpendicular ao eixo de anisotropia uniaxial, resulta um par de v?rtices com n?cleo de 30nm de di?metro, com chiralidade e polaridade opostas. Relatamos tamb?m um estudo te?rico do impacto de v?rtices magn?ticos na histerese t?rmica de um par de nanoelementos el?pticos de ferro, de 10nm de espessura, separados por um espa?ador n?o-magn?tico e acoplados com um substrato antiferromagn?tico por energia de 3 troca. Nossos resultados indicam que h? histerese t?rmica em temperatura ambiente (muito menor do que a temperatura de Curie do ferro), se o substrato for uma superf?cie n?o compensada de NiO. A histerese t?rmica consiste na diferen?a da sequ?ncia de estados magn?ticos nos ramos de aquecimento e resfriamento de um ciclo t?rmico, e se origina na redu??o do valor do campo de interface em altas temperaturas, e na reestrutura??o das fases magn?ticas impostas pela intera??o dipolar forte entre os dois nanoelementos de ferro. A largura da histerese t?rmica varia entre 500K ? 100K para dimens?es laterais de 125nm x 65nm e 145nm x 65nm. Focamos nos ciclos t?rmicos de dois estados especiais: o estado antiparalelo, com o nanoelmento em contato com o substrato alinhado na dire??o do campo de interface e o outro nanoelemento alinhado em dire??o oposta; e o estado paralelo em que os dois nanoelementos est?o alinhados com o campo de interface em temperaturas baixas. Esses s?o os dois estados magn?ticos b?sicos de c?lulas de mem?rias magn?ticas de tunelamento. Mostramos que a intera??o dipolar confere estabilidade t?rmica ao estado antiparalelo e reduz a estabilidade t?rmica do estado paralelo. Al?m disso, nossos resultados indicam que um par de cilindros com dimens?es de 125nm x 65nm, separados por 1.1nm, com campo de interface de 5.88kOe em temperatura de 100K, est? no estado paralelo. Essa fase se mant?m at? 249K, quando h? uma redu??o de 50% da magnetiza??o devido ? nuclea??o de um v?rtice no nanoelemento com superf?cie livre. Pequenas varia??es da magnetiza??o, devidas ao movimento do v?rtice, s?o encontradas no ramo de aquecimento, at? 600K. O estado encontrado em 600K se mant?m ao longo do ramo de resfriamento, com pequenas mudan?as na posi??o do v?rtice. A exist?ncia de histerese t?rmica pode ser um s?rio limite de viabilidade de mem?rias magn?ticas de tunelamento

Magnetické vortexy jsou charakterizovány směrem stáčení magnetizace a polarizací vortexového jádra, přičemž každá z těchto veličin nabývá dvojice stavů. Ve výsledku jsou tak k dispozici čtyři možné stabilní konfigurace, čehož může být využito v multibitových paměťových zařízeních. Tato dizertační práce se zabývá selektivním zápisem stavů magnetického vortexu v magnetickém disku pulzem elektrického proudu stejně jako jejich následným elektrickým čtením. Před samotnou realizací elektrických měření byla provedena statická měření přepínání stavů vortexu pomocí různých proudových pulzů v kombinaci s technikami MFM a následně MTXM. Následně byl realizován dynamický odečet stavu vortexu kompletně založený na elektrických měřeních. Ovládání cirkulace vortexu je založeno na geometrické asymetrii vytvořené oříznutím magnetického disku a vytvořením fazety. Plochý okraj disku definuje preferenční smysl stáčení cirkulace během procesu nukleace vortexu. Řízení polarity se obvykle provádí ve dvou krocích. V prvním kroku, homogenně magnetizovaná vrstva s kolmou magnetickou anizotropií umístěná na dně disku definuje výchozí polaritu vortexu v době nukleace. V druhém kroku, je-li to nutné, je polarita vortexu přepnuta pomocí rychlého proudového pulzu. Proto je možné nastavit požadovaný stav cirkulace vysláním nanosekundového pulsu s nízkou amplitudou, následované nastavením polarity pikosekundovým pulsem s vysokou amplitudou. Stavy vortexů jsou pak detekovány elektrickou spektroskopií prostřednictvím anizotropní magnetorezistence. Vzorky pro všechna statická a dynamická měření byly připraveny pomocí elektronové litografie v kombinaci s lift-off procesem.

Advanced scanning magnetoresistive microscopy (SMRM) — a robust magnetic imaging and probing technique — is presented. It utilizes conventional recording heads of a hard disk drive as sensors. The spatial resolution of modern tunneling magnetoresistive sensors is nowadays comparable with more commonly used magnetic force microscopes. Important advantages of SMRM are the ability to detect pure magnetic signals directly proportional to the out-of-plane magnetic stray field, negligible sensor stray fields, and the ability to apply local bipolar magnetic field pulses up to 10 kOe with bandwidths from DC up to 1 GHz. The performance assessment of this method and corresponding best practices are discussed in the first section of this work. An application example of SMRM, the study on chemically ordered L10 FePt is presented in a second section. A constructed heater unit of SMRM opens the path to investigate temperature-dependent magnetic properties of the medium by recording and imaging at elevated temperatures. L10 FePt is one of the most promising materials to reach limits in storage density of future magnetic recording devices based on heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR). In order to be implemented in an actual recording scheme, the medium Curie temperature should be lowered. This will reduce the power requirements, and hence, wear and tear on a heat source — integrated plasmonic antenna. It is expected that the exchange coupling of FePt to thin Fe layers provides high saturation magnetization and elevated Curie temperature of the composite. The addition of Cu allows adjusting the magnetic properties such as perpendicular magnetic anisotropy, coercivity, saturation magnetization, and Curie temperature. This should lead to a lowering of the switching field of the hard magnetic FeCuPt layer and a reduction of thermally induced recording errors. In this regard, the influence of the Fe layer thickness on the switching behavior of the hard layer was investigated, revealing a strong reduction for Fe layer thicknesses larger than the exchange length of Fe. The recording performance of single-layer and bilayer structures was studied by SMRM roll-off curves and histogram methods at temperatures up to 180 °C In the last section of this work, SMRM advantages are demonstrated by various experiments on a two-dimensional magnetic vortex lattice. Magnetic vortex is a peculiar complex magnetization configuration which typically appears in a soft magnetic structured materials. It consists of two coupled sub-systems: the core, where magnetization vector points perpendicular to the structure plane, and the curling magnetization where magnetic flux is rotating in-plane. The unique properties of a magnetic vortex making it an object of a great research and technological interest for spintronic applications in sensorics or data storage. Manipulation of the vortex core as well as the rotation sense by applying a local field pulse is shown. A spatially resolved switching map reveals a significant "write window" where vortex cores can be addressed correctly. Moreover, the external in-plane magnet extension unit allow analyzing the magnetic vortex rotational sense which is extremely practical for magnetic coupling investigations of magnetic coupling phenomena.

Manipulation of ferromagnetic (FM) spins (and spin textures) using an antiferromagnet (AFM) as an active element in exchange coupled AFM/FM heterostructures is a promising branch of spintronics. Recent ground-breaking experimental demonstrations, such as electrical manipulation of the interfacial exchange coupling and FM spins, as well as ultrafast control of the interfacial exchange-coupling torque in AFM/FM heterostructures, have paved the way towards ultrafast spintronic devices for data storage and neuromorphic computing device applications.[5,6] To achieve electrical manipulation of FM spins, AFMs offer an efficient alternative to passive heavy metal electrodes (e.g., Pt, Pd, W, and Ta) for converting charge current to pure spin current. However, AFM thin films are often integrated into complex heterostructured thin film architectures resulting in chemical, structural, and magnetic disorder. The structural and magnetic disorder in AFM/FM-based spintronic devices can lead to highly undesirable properties, namely thermal dependence of the AFM anisotropy energy barrier, fluctuations in the magnetoresistance, non-linear operation, interfacial spin memory loss, extrinsic contributions to the effective magnetic damping in the adjacent FM, decrease in the effective spin Hall angle, atypical magnetotransport phenomena and distorted interfacial spin structure. Therefore, controlling the magnetic order down to the nanoscale in exchange coupled AFM/FM-based heterostructures is of fundamental importance. However, the impact of fractional variation in the magnetic order at the nanoscale on the magnetization reversal, magnetization dynamics, interfacial spin transport, and the interfacial domain structure of AFM/FM-based heterostructures remains a critical barrier. To address the aforementioned challenges, we conduct a comprehensive experimental investigation of chemical, structural, magnetization reversal (integral and element-specific), magnetization dynamics, and magnetotransport properties, combined with high-resolution magnetic imaging of the exchange coupled Ni3Fe/IrMn3-based heterostructures. Initially, we study the chemical, structural, electrical, and magnetic properties of epitaxially textured MgO(001)/IrMn3(0-35 nm)/Ni3Fe(15 nm)/Al2O3(2.0 nm) heterostructures. We reveal the impact of magnetic field annealing on the interdiffusion at the IrMn3/Ni3Fe interface, electrical resistivity, and magnetic properties of the heterostructures. We further present an AFM IrMn3 film thickness dependence of the exchange bias field, coercive field, magnetization reversal, and magnetization dynamics of the exchange coupled heterostructures. These experiments reveal a strong correlation between the chemical, structural and magnetic properties of the IrMn3-based heterostructures. We find a significant decrease in the spin-mixing conductance of the chemically-disordered IrMn3/Ni3Fe interface compared to the chemically-ordered counterpart. Independent of the AFM film thickness, we unveil that thermally disordered AFM grains exist in all the samples (measured up to 35-nm-thick IrMn3 films). We develop an iterative magnetic field cooling procedure to systematically manipulate the orientation of the thermally disordered and reversible AFM moments and thus, achieve tunable magnetic, and magnetotransport properties of exchange coupled AFM-based heterostructures. Subsequently, we investigate the impact of fractional variation in the AFM order on the magnetization reversal and magnetotransport properties of the epitaxially textured ɣ-phase IrMn3/Ni3Fe, Ni3Fe/IrMn3/Ni3Fe, and Ni3Fe/IrMn3/Ni3Fe/CoO heterostructures. We probe the element-specific (FM: Ni and Co, and AFM: Mn) magnetization reversal properties of the exchange coupled Ni3Fe/IrMn3/Ni3Fe/Co/CoO heterostructures in various magnetic field cooled states. We present a detailed procedure for separating the spin and orbital moment contributions for magnetic elements using the XMCD sum rule. We address whether Mauri-type domain walls can develop at the (polycrystalline) exchange coupled Ni3Fe/IrMn3/Ni3Fe interfaces. We further study the impact of magnetic field cooling on the AFM Mn (near L2,3-edges) X-ray absorption spectra. Finally, we employ a combination of in-field high-resolution magnetic force microscopy, magnetooptical Kerr effect magnetometry with micro-focused beam, and micromagnetic simulations to study the magnetic vortex structures in exchange coupled FM/AFM and AFM/FM/AFM disk structures. We examine the magnetic vortex annihilation mechanism mediated by the emergence and subsequent annihilation of the vortex-antivortex (V-AV) pairs in simple FM and exchange coupled FM/AFM as well as AFM/FM/AFM disk structures. We image the distorted magnetic vortex structures in exchange coupled FM/AFM disks proposed by Gilbert and coworkers. We further emphasize crucial magnetic vortex properties, such as handedness, effective vortex core radius, core displacement at remanence, nucleation field, annihilation field, and exchange bias field. Our experimental inquiry offers profound insight into the interfacial exchange interaction, magnetization reversal, magnetization dynamics, and interfacial spin transport of the AFM/FM-based heterostructures. Moreover, our results pave the way towards nanoscale control of the magnetic properties in AFM-based heterostructures and point towards future opportunities in the field of AFM spintronic devices.:1. Introduction 2. Magnetic Interactions and Exchange Bias Effect 3. Materials 4. Experimental Methods 5. Structural, Electrical, and Magnetization Reversal Properties of Epitaxially Textured ɣ-IrMn3/ Ni3Fe Heterostructures 6. Magnetization Dynamics of MgO(001)/IrMn3/Ni3Fe Heterostructures in the Frequency Domain 7. Tunable Magnetic and Magnetotransport Properties of MgO(001)/Ni3Fe/IrMn3/Ni3Fe/ CoO/Pt Heterostructures 8. Element-Specific XMCD Study of the Exchange Couple Ni3Fe/IrMn3/Ni3Fe/Co/CoO Heterostructures 9. Distorted Vortex Structure and Magnetic Vortex Reversal Processes in Exchange Coupled Ni3Fe/IrMn3 Disk Structures 10. Conclusions and Outlook Addendum Acronyms Symbols Publication List Author Information Acknowledgments Statement of Authorship