Determination of interface layer effects on magnetic properties of nanocomposite magnets and exchange coupling between magnetic entities.

Abstract The interlayer plays a crucial role in improving the properties of many extremely important magnetic materials and devices by regulating the magnetic exchange coupling, while it is still not fully understood in a quantitative way. The main obstacle is that there is still no effective way to characterize quantitatively the ferromagnetic exchange coupling (FEC) strength after inserting the interlayer. In this paper, a rationally designed hard/interlayer/soft layered film is used to study the interlayer effects. It is demonstrated that the magnetic properties of nanocomposite magnets can be effectively enhanced through the modification of interface. Here a new concept, using the nucleation field H ns of soft phase as a "detector" to directly and quantitatively characterize/measure the FEC strength across interface and interlayer, is put forward. It is applied to address the dependence of FEC strength on thickness of nonmagnetic Cr and rare earth-rich phase interlayers. The detailed, distinguishing and typical decay behavior and length of FEC strength for these interlayers are successfully resolved for the first time. The new conception and experimental results get also strongly supported by the theoretical calculation. The nature or mechanism of exchange coupling between ferromagnetic grains or layers after adding the nonmagnetic interlayer is identified by using the hard/interlayer/soft layered film as a model system. Our results demonstrate the validity for characterizing/measuring quantitatively the FEC strength across different interlayer materials via strategy established in this work. It opens up new perspectives to gain insight into the interlayer property, and mechanism comprehension and high-performance design for magnetic materials and devices, such as permanent magnets, high-density magnetic recording media, advanced spin-orbit torque devices, etc. Highlights • The interface layer (interlayer) plays a crucial role in improving the properties of many important magnetic materials and devices by regulating the ferromagnetic exchange coupling (FEC), while it is still not fully understood. The main obstacle is that there is no effective way to quantitatively characterize the FEC strength across the interlayer. • In this paper, a new conception, using the nucleation field Hns of soft phase in a rationally designed hard/interlayer/soft layered film to directly characterize/measure the FEC strength across the interlayer(or interface), is put forward. • It is applied to address the dependence of FEC strength on thickness of nonmagnetic Cr and rare earth-rich phase interlayers. The detailed, distinguishing and typical decay behavior and length of FEC strength are successfully resolved. The new conception and experimental results get strongly supported by theoretical calculation. • The nature or mechanism of exchange coupling between ferromagnetic grains or layers after adding the nonmagnetic interlayer is also identified by using the hard/interlayer/soft layered film as a model system. • Our results open up new perspectives to gain insight into the interlayer property, and mechanism comprehension and high-performance design for magnetic materials and devices, such as permanent magnets, magnetic recording media, advanced spin-orbit torque devices, etc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]