Enhanced all-optical switching and domain wall velocity in annealed synthetic-ferrimagnetic multilayers

Abstract

All optical switching (AOS) of the magnetization in synthetic ferrimagnetic Pt/Co/Gd stacks has received considerable interest due to its high potential towards integration with spintronic devices, such as magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs), to enable ultrafast memory applications. Post-annealing is an essential process in the MTJ fabrication to obtain optimized tunnel magnetoresistance (TMR) ratio. However, with integrating AOS with an MTJ in prospect, the annealing effects on single-pulse AOS and domain wall (DW) dynamics in the Pt/Co/Gd stacks haven't been systematically investigated yet. In this study, we experimentally explore the annealing effect on AOS and field-induced DW motion in Pt/Co/Gd stacks. The results show that the threshold fluence (F_0) for AOS is reduced significantly as a function of annealing temperature (T_a) ranging from 100C to 300C. Specifically, a 28% reduction of F_0 can be observed upon annealing at 300C, which is a critical T_a for MTJ fabrication. Lastly, we also demonstrate a significant increase of the DW velocity in the creep regime upon annealing, which is attributed to annealing-induced Co/Gd interface intermixing. Our findings show that annealed Pt/Co/Gd system facilitates ultrafast and energy-efficient AOS, as well as enhanced DW velocity, which is highly suitable towards opto-spintronic memory applications.

arXiv comment17 pages, 10 figures

References in corpus (10)

• Current-induced magnetization switching in atom-thick tungsten engineered perpendicular magnetic tunnel junctions with large tunnel magnetoresistance
• Electrical detection of magnetic skyrmions by non-collinear magnetoresistance
• Creation of Magnetic Skyrmion Bubble Lattices by Ultrafast Laser in Ultrathin Films
• Integrating all-optical switching with spintronics
• Picosecond all-optical switching of magnetic tunnel junctions
• Universal pinning energy barrier for driven domain walls in thin ferromagnetic films
• Comparing all-optical switching in synthetic-ferrimagnetic multilayers and alloys
• Very large domain wall velocities in Pt/Co/Gd trilayers with Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction
• Energy-efficient domain wall motion governed by the interplay of helicity-dependent optical effect and spin-orbit torque
• Domain-wall motion induced by spin transfer torque delivered by helicity-dependent femtosecond laser

Cited by in corpus (6)

• Picosecond Switching of Optomagnetic Tunnel Junctions
• Design of an integrated hybrid plasmonic-photonic device for all-optical switching and reading of spintronic memory
• Enhancing All-Optical Switching of Magnetization by He Ion Irradiation
• Ultra-low energy threshold engineering for all-optical switching of magnetization in dielectric-coated Co/Gd based synthetic-ferrimagnet
• Ultrafast single-pulse all-optical switching in synthetic ferrimagnetic Tb/Co/Gd multilayers
• Towards high all-optical data writing rates in synthetic ferrimagnets