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Magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs) with bcc(001)-type structures such as Fe(001)/MgO(001)/Fe(001), have been widely used as the core of various spintronic devices such as magnetoresistive memories; however, the limited material selection of (001)-type MTJs hinders the further development of spintronic devices. Here, as an alternative to the (001)-type MTJs, an fcc(111)-type MTJ using a fully epitaxial CoFe/rock-salt MgAlO (MAO)/CoFe is explored to introduce close-packed lattice systems into MTJs. Using an atomically flat Ru(0001) epitaxial buffer layer, fcc(111) epitaxial growth of the CoFe/MAO/CoFe trilayer is achieved. Sharp CoFe(111)/MAO(111) interfaces are confirmed due to the introduction of periodic dislocations by forming a 5:6 in-plane lattice matching structure. The fabricated (111) MTJ exhibits a tunnel magnetoresistance ratio of 37% at room temperature (47% at 10 K). Symmetric differential conductance curves with respect to bias polarity are observed, indicating the achievement of nearly identical upper and lower MAO interface qualities. Despite the charge-uncompensated (111) orientation for a rock-salt-like MAO barrier, the achievement of flat, stable, and spin-polarized barrier interfaces opens a promising avenue for expanding the design of MTJ structures., Comment: 18 pages, 5 figures

Inverse Heusler alloy Mn2CoAl thin films, known as a spin-gapless semiconductor (SGS), grown by three different methods: ultra-high vacuum magnetron spattering, Ar-ion beam assisted sputtering, and molecular beam epitaxy, are investigated by comparing their electric transport properties, microstructures and atomic-level structures. Of the samples, the Mn2CoAl thin film grown by MBE consists of Mn- and Co-rich phases, the structures of which are determined to be the L21B-type and disordered L21-type, respectively, according to anomalous XRD analysis. None of them forms the XA-type structure expected for SGS Heusler alloy, although they all show SGS characteristics. We suggest, to validate SGS characteristics, it is necessary to extract not only magnetic and electric transport properties but also information about microstructures and atomic-scale structures of the films including defects such as atomic swap.

Giant tunnel magnetoresistance (TMR) ratios of 417% at room temperature (RT) and 914% at 3 K were demonstrated in epitaxial Fe/MgO/Fe(001) exchanged-biased spin-valve magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs) by tuning growth conditions for each layer, combining sputter deposition for the Fe layers, electron-beam evaporation of the MgO barrier, and barrier interface tuning. Clear TMR oscillation as a function of the MgO thickness with a large peak-to-valley difference of ~80% was observed when the layers were grown on a highly (001)-oriented Cr buffer layer. Specific features of the observed MTJs are symmetric differential conductance (dI/dV) spectra for the bias polarity and plateau-like deep local minima in dI/dV (parallel configuration) at |V| = 0.2~0.5 V. At 3K, fine structures with two dips emerge in the plateau-like dI/dV, reflecting highly coherent tunneling through the Fe/MgO/Fe. We also observed a 496% TMR ratio at RT by a 2.24-nm-thick-CoFe insertion at the bottom-Fe/MgO interface., Comment: 21 pages, 7 figures

Voltage-controlled magnetic anisotropy (VCMA) offers an emerging approach to realize energy-efficient magnetization switching in spintronic devices such as magnetic random access memories (MRAMs). Here, we show that manipulating the condensed states, i.e., introducing quantum well (QW) can significantly influence the VCMA in a Cr/Fe-QW/MgAl2O4 based magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ). Only for the MTJ with an even number of Fe atomic layers, we observed a novel A-shaped VCMA curve for a particular QW state, where magnetic anisotropy energy (MAE) reaches a local maximum at zero bias and reduces when applying both positive and negative bias, i.e., a novel bi-polar VCMA effect. Our ab initio calculations demonstrate that the QW states give an additional contribution to perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA), which can explain not only the A-shaped VCMA but also the Fe-layer-number parity dependence of VCMA. The present study suggests that the QW-modulated VCMA should open a new pathway to design VCMA-assisted MRAM., Comment: 26 pages, 8 figures

We have studied the charge to spin conversion in Bi$_{1-x}$Sb$_x$/CoFeB heterostructures. The spin Hall conductivity (SHC) of the sputter deposited heterostructures exhibits a high plateau at Bi-rich compositions, corresponding to the topological insulator phase, followed by a decrease of SHC for Sb-richer alloys, in agreement with the calculated intrinsic spin Hall effect of Bi$_{1-x}$Sb$_x$ alloy. The SHC increases with increasing thickness of the Bi$_{1-x}$Sb$_x$ alloy before it saturates, indicating that it is the bulk of the alloy that predominantly contributes to the generation of spin current; the topological surface states, if present in the films, play little role. Surprisingly, the SHC is found to increase with increasing temperature, following the trend of carrier density. These results suggest that the large SHC at room temperature, with a spin Hall efficiency exceeding 1 and an extremely large spin current mobility, is due to increased number of Dirac-like, thermally-excited electrons in the $L$ valley of the narrow gap Bi$_{1-x}$Sb$_x$ alloy.

This study focuses on the potential of permanent magnets as thermoelectric converters. It is found that a SmCo$_5$-type magnet exhibits the large anomalous Ettingshausen effect (AEE) at room temperature and that its charge-to-heat current conversion coefficient is more than one order of magnitude greater than that of typical ferromagnetic metals. The large AEE is an exclusive feature of the SmCo$_5$-type magnet among various permanent magnets in practical use, which is independent of the conventional performance of magnets based on static magnetic properties. The experimental results show that the large AEE originates from the intrinsic transverse thermoelectric conductivity of SmCo$_5$. This finding makes a connection between permanent magnets and thermal energy engineering, providing the basis for creating "thermoelectric permanent magnets.", Comment: 14 pages, 4 figures, 2 supplemental figures, 1 supplemental table

Laser powder bed fusion is a well-established additive manufacturing method that can be used for the production of net-shaped Nd-Fe-B sintered magnets. However, low coercivity has been one of the drawbacks in the laser powder bed fusion processed Nd-Fe-B magnets. In this work, we have demonstrated that the grain boundary diffusion process using low-melting Nd-Cu, Nd-Al-Ni-Cu, and Nd-Tb-Cu alloys to the selective laser sintered NdFeB magnets can results in a substantial enhancement of coercivity from 0.65 T to 1.5 T. Detailed microstructure investigations clarified formation of Nd-rich grain boundary phase, introducing Tb-rich shell at the surface of Nd2Fe14B grains, and maintaining the grain size in nano-scale are responsible for the large coercivity enhancement.

Heat assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) is a new technology which uses temporary near field laser heating of the media during write to increase hard disk drive storage density. By using plasmonic antenna embedded in the write head, extremely high thermal gradient are created in the recording media (up to 10K/nm). State of the art HAMR media consists of grains of FePtX ordered alloys exhibiting high perpendicular anisotropy separated by insulating grain boundaries. Nearby the plasmonic antenna, the difference of temperature between two 8nm wide neighboring grains in the media can reach 80K, representing a gigantic thermal gradient of ~40K/nm across the grain boundary. Such situations with much weaker thermal gradient (~1K/nm, already considered as very large) have already been studied in the field of spincaloritronics. There, it was shown that very large spin transfer torques due to thermal gradients can arise in magnetic tunnel junctions which can even yield magnetization switching. Considering that two neighboring grains separated by an insulating grain boundary in a HAMR media can be viewed as a magnetic tunnel junction and that the thermal gradients in HAMR are one to two orders of magnitude larger than those existing in conventional spincaloritronics, one may expect a major impact from these thermal torques on magnetization switching dynamics and therefore on HAMR recording performances. This paper combines theory, experiments aiming at determining the polarization of tunneling electrons across the media grain boundaries, and micromagnetic simulations of recording process. It is shown that the thermal in-plane torque can have a detrimental impact on the recording performances by favoring antiparallel magnetic alignment between neighboring grains during the media cooling. Implications on media design are discussed in order to limit the impact of these thermal torques.

We demonstrate a high-throughput direct measurement method for the magnetocaloric effect (MCE) by means of a lock-in thermography (LIT) technique. This method enables systematic measurements of the magnetic-field and operation-frequency dependences of the temperature change induced by the MCE. This is accomplished in a shorter time compared with conventional adiabatic temperature measurement methods. The direct measurement based on LIT is free from any possible miscalculations and errors arising from indirect measurements using thermodynamic relations. Importantly, the LIT technique makes simultaneous MCE measurements of multiple materials possible without increasing measurement time, realizing high-throughput investigations of the MCE. By applying this method to Gd, we obtain the MCE-induced temperature change of 1.84 $\pm$ 0.11 K under a modulation field of 1.0 T and modulation frequency of 0.5 Hz at a temperature of 300.5 $\pm$ 0.5 K, offering evidence that the LIT method gives quantitative results., Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures

We study interfacial magnetocrystalline anisotropies in various Fe/semiconductor heterostructures by means of first-principles calculations. We find that many of those systems show perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA) with a positive value of the interfacial anisotropy constant $K_{\rm i}$. In particular, the Fe/CuInSe$_2$ interface has a large $K_{\rm i}$ of $\sim 2.3\,{\rm mJ/m^2}$, which is about 1.6 times larger than that of Fe/MgO known as a typical system with relatively large PMA. We also find that the values of $K_{\rm i}$ in almost all the systems studied in this work follow the well-known Bruno's relation, which indicates that minority-spin states around the Fermi level provide dominant contributions to the interfacial magnetocrystalline anisotropies. Detailed analyses of the local density of states and wave-vector-resolved anisotropy energy clarify that the large $K_{\rm i}$ in Fe/CuInSe$_2$ is attributed to the preferable $3d$-orbital configurations around the Fermi level in the minority-spin states of the interfacial Fe atoms. Moreover, we have shown that the locations of interfacial Se atoms are the key for such orbital configurations of the interfacial Fe atoms., Comment: 8 pages, 8 figures, 1 table

Epitaxial Fe/magnesium gallium spinel oxide (MgGa2O4)/Fe(001) magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs) were fabricated by magnetron sputtering. Tunnel magnetoresistance (TMR) ratio up to 121% at room temperature (196% at 4 K) was observed, suggesting a TMR enhancement by the coherent tunneling effect in the MgGa2O4 barrier. The MgGa2O4 layer had a spinel structure and it showed good lattice matching with the Fe layers owing to slight tetragonal lattice distortion of MgGa2O4. Barrier thickness dependence of the tunneling resistance and current-voltage characteristics revealed that the barrier height of the MgGa2O4 barrier is much lower than that in an MgAl2O4 barrier. This study demonstrates the potential of Ga-based spinel oxides for MTJ barriers having a large TMR ratio at a low resistance area product., Comment: 4 figures, 1 table

We investigated the effect of a Mg-Al layer insertion at the bottom interface of epitaxial Fe/$MgAl_{2}O_{4}$/Fe(001) magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs) on their spin-dependent transport properties. The tunnel magnetoresistance (TMR) ratio and differential conductance spectra for the parallel magnetic configuration exhibited clear dependence on the inserted Mg-Al thickness. A slight Mg-Al insertion (thickness < 0.1 nm) was effective for obtaining a large TMR ratio above 200% at room temperature and observing a distinct local minimum structure in conductance spectra. In contrast, thicker Mg-Al (> 0.2 nm) induced a reduction of TMR ratios and featureless conductance spectra, indicating a degradation of the bottom-Fe/$MgAl_{2}O_{4}$ interface. Therefore, a minimal Mg-Al insertion was found to be effective to maximize the TMR ratio for a sputtered $MgAl_{2}O_{4}$-based MTJ., Comment: 16 pages, 4 figures, accepted to "AIP Advances" as conference proceeding paper (61st Annual Conference on Magnetism and Magnetic Materials, New Orleans, USA)

The structures of epitaxial ultrathin Co2FeAl/MgO(001) heterostructures relating to the interface-induced perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA) were investigated using scanning transmission electron microscopy, energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy, and x-ray magnetic circular dichroism. We found that Al atoms from the Co2FeAl layer significantly interdiffuse into MgO, forming an Al-deficient Co-Fe-Al/Mg-Al-O structure near the Co2FeAl/MgO interface. This atomic replacement may play an additional role for enhancing PMA, which is consistent with the observed large perpendicular orbital magnetic moments of Fe atoms at the interface. This work suggests that control of interdiffusion at ferromanget/barrier interfaces is critical for designing an interface-induced PMA system., Comment: 5 figures

We have studied the relationship between the structure and the spin Hall angle of the early 5d transition metals in X/CoFeB/MgO (X=Hf, Ta, W, Re) heterostructures. Spin Hall magnetoresistance (SMR) is used to characterize the spin Hall angle of the heavy metals. Transmission electron microscopy images show that all underlayers are amorphous-like when their thicknesses are small, however, crystalline phases emerge as the thickness is increased for certain elements. We find that the heavy metal layer thickness dependence of the SMR reflects these changes in structure. The spin Hall angle largest |\theta$_{SH}$| of Hf, Ta, W and Re (~0.11, 0.10, 0.23 and 0.07, respectively) is found when the dominant phase is amorphous-like. We find that the amorphous-like phase not only possesses large resistivity but also exhibits sizeable spin Hall conductivity, which both contribute to the emergence of the large spin Hall angle.

An unusual crystallographic orientation of hexagonal Ru with a 4-fold symmetry emerging in epitaxial MgO/Ru/Co2FeAl/MgO heterostructures is reported, in which an approximately Ru(02-23) growth attributes to the lattice matching among MgO, Ru, and Co2FeAl. Perpendicular magnetic anisotropy of the Co2FeAl/MgO interface is substantially enhanced as compared with those with a Cr(001) layer. The MTJs incorporating this structure gave rise to the largest tunnel magnetoresistance for perpendicular MTJs using low damping Heusler alloys. The 4-fold-symmetry hexagonal Ru arises from an epitaxial growth with an unprecedentedly high crystal index, opening a unique pathway for the development of perpendicular anisotropy films of cubic and tetragonal ferromagnetic alloys., Comment: Advanced Materials 2014

We show that by introducing isoelectronic iron (Fe) magnetic impurities and Beryllium (Be) double-donor atoms into InAs, it is possible to grow a n-type ferromagnetic semiconductor (FMS) with the ability to control ferromagnetism by both Fe and independent carrier doping by low-temperature molecular-beam epitaxy. We demonstrate that (In,Fe)As doped with electrons behaves as an n-type electron-induced FMS. This achievement opens the way to realize novel spin-devices such as spin light-emitting diodes or spin field-effect transistors, as well as helps understand the mechanism of carrier-mediated ferromagnetism in FMSs., Comment: arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1106.0561

We have studied microwave emission from a current-perpendicular-to-plane pseudo spin valve nanopillars with Heusler alloy Co2Fe(Ga0.5Ge0.5) electrodes. Large emission amplitude exceeding 150 nV/Hz^0.5, partly owing to the large magnetoresistance, and narrow generation linewidth below 10 MHz are observed. We also find that the linewidth shows significant dependence on the applied field magnitude and its angle within the film plane. A minimum in the linewidth is observed when the slope of the frequency versus current becomes near zero. This agrees with theoretical prediction that takes into account non-linear phase noise as a source for linewidth broadening.

We extend our previous theoretical study of Mn-based orthorhombic metamagnets to those that possess large nearest neighbour Mn-Mn separations (d1>3.22A). Based on our calculations, we design and synthesize a series of alloys, CoMnGe_{1-x}P_{x}, to experimentally demonstrate the validity of the model. Unusually, we predict and prepare several metamagnets from two ferromagnetic end-members, thus demonstrating a new example of how to vary crystal structure, within the Pnma symmetry group, to provide highly tunable metamagnetism.