2018/03/31 by Keisuke Masuda, Yoshio Miura · 36 citations
Chemistry · Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Condensed Matter Physics #Anisotropy #Chemistry #Condensed matter physics #Crystallography #Ferromagnetism #Magnetic Properties and Synthesis of Ferrites #Magnetic anisotropy #Magnetic field #Magnetic properties of thin films #Magnetization #Materials science #Order (exchange) #Physics #Quantum mechanics #cond-mat.mes-hall #cond-mat.mtrl-sci
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevb.98.224421
published in Physical review. B./Physical review. B 98(22) (American Physical Society) · 24 pages, 10 figures, 1 table
openalex created_date 2018/04/06 · openalex publication_date 2018/12/26 · arxiv created 2018/12/27 · arxiv updated 2018/12/31 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We present a theoretical study on interfacial magnetocrystalline anisotropy for Fe/MgAl2O4. This system has a very small lattice mismatch at the interface and therefore is suitable for realizing a fully coherent ferromagnet/oxide interface for magnetic tunnel junctions. On the basis of density functional theory, we calculate the interfacial anisotropy constant Ki and show that this system has interfacial perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA) with Ki\ensuremath≈1.2\phantom\rule0.28em0exmJ/m2, which is a little bit smaller than that of Fe/MgO (Ki\ensuremath≈1.5--1.7 mJ/m2). Second-order perturbation analysis with respect to the spin-orbit interaction clarifies that the difference in Ki between Fe/MgAl2O4 and Fe/MgO originates from the difference in contributions from spin-flip scattering terms at the interface. We propose that the insertion of tungsten layers into the interface of Fe/MgAl2O4 is a promising way to obtain huge interfacial PMA with Ki\ensuremath\gtrsim3\phantom\rule0.28em0exmJ/m2.