This thesis consists of three distinct components: (1) a test of Slocnzewski's theory of spin-transfer torque using the Boltzmann equation, (2) a comparison of macrospin models of spin-transfer dynamics in spin valves with experimental data, and (3) a study of spin-transfer torque in continuously variable magnetization. Slonczewski developed a simple circuit theory for spin-transfer torque in spin valves with thin spacer layer. We developed a numerical method to calculate the spin-transfer torque in a spin valve using Boltzmann equation. In almost all realistic cases, the circuit theory predictions agree well with the Boltzmann equation results. To gain a better understanding of experimental results for spin valve systems, current-induced magnetization dynamics for a spin valve are studied using a single-domain approximation and a generalized Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert equation. Many features of the experiment were reproduced by the simulations. However, there are two significant discrepancies: the current dependence of the magnetization precession frequency, and the presence and/or absence of a microwave quiet magnetic phase with a distinct magnetoresistance signature. Spin-transfer effects in systems with continuously varying magnetization also have attracted much attention. One key question is under what condition is the spin current adiabatic, i.e., aligned to the local magnetization. Both quantum and semi-classical calculations of the spin current and spin-transfer torque are done in a free-electron Stoner model. The calculation shows that, in the adiabatic limit, the spin current aligns to the local magnetization while the spin density does not. The reason is found in an effective field produced by the gradient of the magnetization in the wall. Non-adiabatic effects arise for short domain walls, but their magnitude decreases exponentially as the wall width increases.

Die Messung magnetischer Felder ist in der Sensorik von großem Interesse. Benötigt werden dazu physikalische Effekte, die magnetische Größen in elektrische Größen umsetzen. Ein interessanter Vertreter ist dabei der Riesenmagnetowiderstand (GMR). Systeme, die den GMR zeigen, sind Thema dieser Arbeit. Die untersuchten Systeme lassen sich in zwei Typen einteilen: Multilagen bestehen aus einer großen Zahl (30-40) nominell identischer Doppellagen aus abwechselnd ferromagnetischem und nichtmagnetischem Metall. Diese Systeme zeigen eine Widerstandsänderung mit der Stärke des externen Magnetfeldes. Untersucht wurden Schichten Co/Cu und NiFe/Cu. Es konnten Schichten mit einer Sensitivität von 3.2%/mT präpariert werden. Für den Rückgang der Signalstärke bei erhöhten Temperaturen sind, abhängig von der Cu-Dicke, zwei unterschiedliche Mechanismen verantwortlich. Diese werden diskutiert. Spin Valves bestehen aus Einzellagen unterschiedlicher Materialien (antiferro-, ferro- und paramagnetisch), meist Metalle, die eine Widerstandsänderung mit der Richtung des externen Magnetfeldes zeigen. Untersucht wurden Systeme, die auf NiO, FeMn und IrMn basieren. Die Temperaturabhängigkeit dieser Systeme zeigt Eigenschaften, die für die kommerzielle Nutzung wichtig sein können. Die mikroskopischen Ursachen werden diskutiert. Ein neu entwickeltes, leistungsfähiges Modell kann das sensorische Verhalten dieser Systeme sehr gut nachbilden und erlaubt so einen Einblick in die internen Vorgänge.

Recognising that the characterisation of actual interfaces in magnetic multilayer systems will provide valuable insight for the integration of spintronics in practical devices, a study of interface effects in various structures is presented. Magnetometry measurements are performed for a range of Fe thicknesses (0.4 - 23 nm) grown by molecular beam epitaxy on GaAs and InAs substrates in order to determine the factors governing the evolution of the magnetic moment of epitaxial Fe grown on a zinc-blende semiconductor. A greater reduction of the Fe magnetic moment is observed for films grown on InAs as compared to GaAs, as the Fe films reach a bulk-like moment (within 10% deviation) at a thickness of ~5.2 nm and ~2.2 nm, respectively. From this direct comparative study it is concluded that interface and interdiffusion effects are the dominant mechanisms influencing the value of the magnetic moment for ultra-thin Fe films on GaAs and InAs. Spin injection at this interface is performed, by detecting optical polarisation in the oblique Hanle geometry from a Fe/AlGaAs/GaAs spin-light emitting diode structure. The electrical and magnetic properties of the system are presented, and a ~1% injection polarisation at room temperature, rising to ~4% at 77 K is reported. A study of the deposition and growth of MgO thin (3 - 39 nm) films in conjunction with magnetic layers is also performed. Crystallinity of MgO grown on GaAs is obtained, and epitaxial growth of Fe and Co on MgO is demonstrated. Polarised neutron reflectivity results again indicate a slight decrease in Fe and Co magnetic moments due to interfacial oxide layers. MgO is also incorporated in a pseudo-spin-valve structure which demonstrates epitaxy-induced magneto-crystalline anisotropy. It is concluded that the interface quality is a critical parameter for spintronic devices. Atomic-scale defects and intermixing in real samples mean that current theoretical estimates of ~100% injection efficiency in perfect systems remain unattainable. However by increasing atomic-level structural control of interfaces, a substantial increase in efficiency might be achieved, similarly to the recent breakthrough in tunnelling magneto-resistance ratios which have reached 1000%.

Magnetic oxides have become of interest source for spin transport devices due to their high spin polarization. But the real applications of these oxides remains unsatisfactory up to date, mostly due to the change of properties as a result of nano structuring. Magnetite (Fe3O4) is one such a material. High Curie temperature and the half metallicity of Fe3O4 make it a good potential candidate for spin transport devices. Studies have shown that the nano structuring Fe3O4 changes most of it's important properties. This includes high saturation magnetization and drop of conductivity by a few orders of magnitude in Fe3O4 thin films. In this study, we have successfully grown Fe3O4 by reactive sputtering and studied the effect of transition metal buffer layers on structural, transport, and magnetic properties of Fe3O4. It is shown that the lattice strain created by different buffer layers has major impacts on the properties of Fe3O4 thin films. Also for the first time the magnetic force microscopic measurements were carried out in Fe3O4 thin films through Verwey transition. MFM data with the magnetization data have confirmed that the magnetization of Fe3O4 thin films rotate slightly out of the plane below the Verwey transition. Fe3O4 thin films were also successfully used in fabricating spin valve structures with Chromium and Permalloy. Here, the Fe3O4 was used to generated the spin polarized electrons through reflection instead of direct spin injection. This is a novel method that can be used to inject spins into materials with different conductivities, where the traditional direct spin injection fails. Also the effect of growth field on Fe3O4 and Fe3O4/Cr/Py spin valves were investigated. In Fe3O4 the growth field induced an uni-axial anisotropy while it creates a well defined parallel and anti-parallel states in spin valves. Magneto thermal phenomenon including spin dependent Seebeck effect, Planar Nernst effect, and Anomalous Nernst effect were measured in ferromagnetic thin films and spin valves. Spin dependent Seebeck effect and planar Nernst effect were directly compared with the charge counterpart anisotropic magneto resistance. All the effects exhibited similar behavior indicating the same origin, namely spin dependent scattering.

This thesis investigates the recently developed technique of spin-torque-driven ferromagentic resonance (ST-FMR). Contrary to conventional FMR techniques where the magnetodynamics are excited by torques on the magentic moments produced by microwave fields, ST-FMR uses the spin-transfer torque acting on a nanomagnet. Here we present two experiments which exploit ST-FMR in the standard AFM/FM/NM/FM exchange-biased spin valve (EBSV) structures, where the ferromagnetic (FM) layers are separated by a nonmagnetic (NM) spacer, and one ferromagnet is pinned with an antiferromagnetic (AFM) layer. In our experiments microwave currents are applied to a mechanical point contact between a sharpened Cu tip and a SV (IrMn/Py/Cu/Py) multilayer film. While most ST-FMR experiments require noncollinear orientation of FM-layer magnetizations, we studied ST-FMR in SVs above saturation, where the two FM layers have parallel magnetizations. The resulting magnetodynamics are detected electrically by a small rectified dc voltage, which appears across the structure during resonance. Studies of the resonance frequencies, amplitudes, line widths, and line shapes as a function of microwave power, microwave frequency, dc current and magentic field are presented. The results are analyzed in terms of ST-FMR and rectification based on GMR. However the origin of the observed voltage cannot be fully explained by the resistance changes which come from the giant magnetoresistance (GMR) effect of the spin valve. To investigate other sources of rectified dc voltages at resonance we have performed the second set of measurements with lithographically patterned pairs of (Py/Cu/Co/IrMn)-SV microstripes. These measurements also revealed a resonance in the rectified voltage at FMR frequencies, and showed additional structures which might be related to spin wave excitations. The observations can be tentatively attributed to additional rectification effects due to anisotropic magnetoresistance (AMR). The line pair structure allows us to use different measurement geometries to investigate the magnetodynamics in the SV. In this experiment FMR can either be excited by spin transfer or by a rf magnetic field created by the microwave current, depending on the used geometry. Qualitative studies of the FMR dependencies and characteristics are presented for different measurement geometries. / text

Válvulas de Spin têm sido utilizadas na fabricação de sensores magnéticos e memórias de acesso randômico, sendo muito importantes do ponto de vista tecnológico. Neste trabalho, foram exploradas as análises das curvas de reversão de primeira ordem da magnetorresistência (MR-FORC), bem como ajustes das curvas de histereses da magnetização e magnetorresistência, para estudar o fenômeno de exchange-bias, anisotropia magnética e propriedades magnetorresistivas. As válvulas de spin estudadas foram do tipo NiFe/Cu/NiFe/IrMn, tendo camadas semente e de cobertura de Ta, preparadas por sputtering. Um modelo fenomenológico de parede de domínios no material antiferromagnético (AFM) foi utilizado, levando em conta as anisotropias magnéticas e interações entre as camadas. Também foram consideradas certas dispersões da anisotropia dos grãos ferromagnéticos (FM) e antiferromagnéticos (com distribuições Gaussianas) em torno dos respectivos eixos de anisotropia uniaxiais. Para o ajuste da magnetização para algumas amostras, foi necessário utilizar uma rotação no plano de um ângulo nos eixos de anisotropia uniaxiais do FM e AFM, em relação à direção do campo magnético aplicado durante a deposição dos filmes. Bons ajustes das curvas de histereses das magnetizações foram obtidos nas direções medidas do campo magnético aplicado. Um método baseado em medidas de variações angulares da magnetorresistência em campos constantes foi proposto para extrair este ângulo para cada amostra. Foram obtidas razoáveis concordâncias entre estes ângulos e os correspondentes extraídos dos ajustes das curvas de magnetização. Através da análise dos diagramas da MR-FORC e de simulações indicados dos resultados dos ajustes das histereses da magnetização, foi encontrada uma relação direta entre os campos de interação (e suas incertezas) com os campos de exchange-bias (HEB) dos grãos da distribuição (extraídos das simulações, usando a largura da distribuição obtida do ajuste). Resumindo, esta análise mostrou que esta técnica permite extrair informações comparativas sobre a dispersão dos eixos de anisotropia dos grãos FM e AFM em torno do eixo de anisotropia uniaxial, o que pode ser importante na caracterização dos sensores magnetorresistivos. Além disso, análise dos diagramas MR-FORC indicaram início da presença de descontinuidade na camada de NiFe presa em 27, com um aumento acentuado (acima do previsto) para a amostra com 25. Este aumento acima do previsto corrobora com nossa hipótese. As simulações das curvas de histerese da magnetorresistência não foram muito bons, indicando que melhorias devem ser introduzidas no modelo utilizado para a simulação da histerese da magnetorresistência, obtidos a partir dos ângulos das camadas ferromagnéticas livre e presa. A questão referente a presença em algumas das amostras de um desalinhamento entre os eixos fácéis do FM e do AFM ainda é uma questão em aberta, mas neste trabalho foi encontrado que este ângulo é igual a 2. / Spin Valves have been employed as magnetic sensors and used in random access memories, showing they are very important in terms of technological point of view. In this work, analyses of the magnetoresistance first order reversal curves (MR-FORC) have been used, as well as fittings of the magnetization and magnetoresistance hysteresis, to study the exchange-bias phenomena, magnetic anisotropies and magnetoresistance in spin valves. Sputtering has been used to the deposition of NiFe/Cu/NiFe/IrMn, and Ta has been deposited as seed and buffer layers. A domain wall model (in the antiferromagnetic layer) taking into account the magnetic anisotropies and the interactions between the layers has been employed to fit the magnetization hysteresis. Some textures have been also introduced to take into account the ferromagnetic (FM) and antiferromagnetic (AFM) grains dispersion (with Gaussian distributions) centered around the respective uniaxial anisotropy axes. However, to obtain good fits for some samples, it has been necessary to include an in-plane rotation of an angle of the both FM and AFM easy axes in relation to the field direction applied during the growing of the films. Good fits of the magnetization hysteresis have been obtained for all measured directions of the applied field. A new method based on the angular variation of the magnetoresistance to constant fields has been proposed to extract directly these angles. Reasonable agreements have been obtained between these angles and the corresponding ones extracted from the fits of the magnetization loops. Through the analyses of the MR-FORC and from the simulations indicated by the parameters (obtained from the fittings of magnetization loops), a direct relation between the interaction fields (and its uncertainties) and the exchange-bias fields of the grains of the distribution (extracted from the simulations, using the width of the distribution obtained from the magnetization fittings) has been identified. In summary, this analysis has showed that this technique allows to extract comparative information about the dispersion of the anisotropy axes of the FM and AFM grains around the uniaxial axis, which can be very import to the characterization of spin-valve based sensors. Besides, MR-FORC analyses have also indicated the presence of a threshold of discontinuity of the pinned NiFe layer at 27, showing a huge increase (above of the expected) to the sample at 25, and this unexpected increasing has corroborated with our hypothese. Simulations of the magnetoresistance loops have not been good, indicating that improvements should be included in the model employed to simulate these curves, obtained from the pinned and free angles of the NiFe layers. Concerning the case of the presence of misalignments of FM and AFM for some samples, it is still an open question, but in this work, we have found that this angle () is equal to 2.

No description available.

The interfacial electronic structure of the organic material- tris(8-hydroxyquinolinato)aluminum (Alq3) forming an interface with cobalt metal has been investigated in this research. The primary characterization method used in this research was near-edge X-ray absorption fine structure (NEXAFS) spectroscopy which probes the unoccupied molecular orbitals of a material. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations have also been employed to calculate the partial density of states (PDOS) of all constituent elements present in Alq3 molecule. The DFT calculations helped to determine the molecular orbital structure of Alq3 and to understand how the orbital structure is influenced by forming an interface with ferromagnetic Co layer. The experimental NEXAFS spectra measured in total fluorescence yield (TFY) showed that the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO) and LUMO+1 states of Alq3 were not affected by the presence of Co when Co is deposited onto Alq3. On the other hand, a charge transfer between Co and Alq3 led the loss or reduction of LUMO+2 state for a Co(top)/Alq3 bilayer sample when compared to pristine Alq3 reference sample (without Co deposition). This selective effect of Co on the orbital configuration of Alq3 suggests that Co atoms diffuse into Alq3 and interact with preferred sites in Alq3. By comparing the spectral change in the experimental NEXAFS spectra to the calculated PDOS of Alq3, the preferred interaction sites between Co and Alq3 could be successfully determined. This work suggests that the spectroscopic approach using synchrotron-radiation X-ray spectroscopy can serve as a powerful means for studying the interfacial electronic structure between magnetic metals and organic semiconductors and can contribute to the research and development of high performance organic spintronics.

Die Messung magnetischer Felder ist in der Sensorik von großem Interesse. Benötigt werden dazu physikalische Effekte, die magnetische Größen in elektrische Größen umsetzen. Ein interessanter Vertreter ist dabei der Riesenmagnetowiderstand (GMR). Systeme, die den GMR zeigen, sind Thema dieser Arbeit. Die untersuchten Systeme lassen sich in zwei Typen einteilen: Multilagen bestehen aus einer großen Zahl (30-40) nominell identischer Doppellagen aus abwechselnd ferromagnetischem und nichtmagnetischem Metall. Diese Systeme zeigen eine Widerstandsänderung mit der Stärke des externen Magnetfeldes. Untersucht wurden Schichten Co/Cu und NiFe/Cu. Es konnten Schichten mit einer Sensitivität von 3.2%/mT präpariert werden. Für den Rückgang der Signalstärke bei erhöhten Temperaturen sind, abhängig von der Cu-Dicke, zwei unterschiedliche Mechanismen verantwortlich. Diese werden diskutiert. Spin Valves bestehen aus Einzellagen unterschiedlicher Materialien (antiferro-, ferro- und paramagnetisch), meist Metalle, die eine Widerstandsänderung mit der Richtung des externen Magnetfeldes zeigen. Untersucht wurden Systeme, die auf NiO, FeMn und IrMn basieren. Die Temperaturabhängigkeit dieser Systeme zeigt Eigenschaften, die für die kommerzielle Nutzung wichtig sein können. Die mikroskopischen Ursachen werden diskutiert. Ein neu entwickeltes, leistungsfähiges Modell kann das sensorische Verhalten dieser Systeme sehr gut nachbilden und erlaubt so einen Einblick in die internen Vorgänge.

Neste trabalho, apresentamos estudos de magnetotransporte em um sistema quase tridimensional de elétrons produzido em amostras contendo poços quânticos parabólicos (PQW, Parabolic Quantum Well ) formados em heteroestruturas de AlGaAs crescidos sobre substratos de GaAs pela técnica de epitaxia por feixe molecular (MBE). Na primeira parte do nosso trabalho realizamos medidas de magnetoresistência, efeito Hall e efeito Shubnikov-de Haas em PQWs com larguras de 1000 Å a fim de investigar as propriedades eletronicas tais como a concentração e a mobilidade dos elétrons nas amostras. Através de cálculos autoconsistentes determinou-se os perfis de potencial, os níveis de energia e as concentrações de cada uma das sub-bandas ocupadas no poço. Uma análise através da transformada de Fourier também permitiu determinar as concentrações eletrônicas nas sub-bandas. Em uma segunda parte estudou-se a influência da aplicação de potenciais externos através de uma porta metálica com barreira em uma amostra contendo um PQW de largura 3000 Å na presença de campos magnéticos perpendicular e paralelo à superfície da amostra. Encontrou-se que para uma tensão de porta de Vg = 0, 55V forma-se uma barreira de potencial ainda sem ter depleção de cargas no poço. Apresenta-se a idealização do dispositivo transistor válvula de spin, a partir do fato que aplicando uma tensão de porta é possível deslocar espacialmente os elétrons e mudar a sua orientaçãp de spin. / Results from magnetic transport studies made on quasi-three-dimensional electron systems are presented in this work. AlGaAs heterostructures grown on GaAs subtrates through molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) enable the existence of this type of systems by means of parabolic quantum wells (PQW) formation. This work was developed in two main parts. First, we studied magnetoresistence phenomena, such as Hall effect and Shubnikov-de Haas, on 1000 Å width PQWs. This permits to know the electronic concentration and mobility values of this type of samples, among other electrical properties. Then, self-consistent calculations gave an outline of the size and shape of the potentials, and gave the values for the energy levels and the electronic concentration on each occupied sub-band of the quantum well. Through Fourier transform analysis was also possible to obtain and confirm the electronic concentrations of the occupied sub-bands. In the second part of the work, we studied the effects of applying an external potential through a barrier gate to a 3000 Å width PQW sample in the presence of magnetic fields parallel and perpendicular to the sample surface. For a V g = 0, 55 V gate voltage, it was found that a potential barrier was formed even without charge depletion in the well. An idealization for the spin valve transistor device, based on the fact that applying a gate potential spatially dislocates the electrons and changes their spin orientation, is presented.