Energy landscape of noncollinear exchange coupled magnetic multilayers

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Lertzman-Lepofsky, George, Terko, Afan, Koraltan, Sabri, Suess, Dieter, Girt, Erol, Abert, Claas
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2024
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author Lertzman-Lepofsky, George
Terko, Afan
Koraltan, Sabri
Suess, Dieter
Girt, Erol
Abert, Claas
author_facet Lertzman-Lepofsky, George
Terko, Afan
Koraltan, Sabri
Suess, Dieter
Girt, Erol
Abert, Claas
contents We conduct an exploration of the energy landscape of two coupled ferromagnetic layers with perpendicular-to-plane uniaxial anisotropy using finite-element micromagnetic simulations. These multilayers can be used to produce noncollinearity in spin-transfer torque magnetic random-access memory cells, which has been shown to increase the performance of this class of computer memory. We show that there exists a range of values of the interlayer exchange coupling constants for which the magnetic state of these multilayers can relax into two energy minima. The size of this region is determined by the difference in the magnitude of the layer anisotropies and is minimized when this difference is large. In this case, there is a wide range of experimentally achievable coupling constants that can produce desirable and stable noncollinear alignment. We investigate the energy barriers separating the local and global minima using string method simulations, showing that the stabilities of the minima increase with increasing difference in the anisotropy of the ferromagnetic layers. We provide an analytical solution to the location of the minima in the energy landscape of coupled macrospins, which has good agreement with our micromagnetic results for a case involving ferromagnetic layers with the same thickness and anisotropy, no demagnetization field, and large exchange stiffness. These results are important to understand how best to employ noncollinear coupling in the next generation of thin film magnetic devices.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2402_15910
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Energy landscape of noncollinear exchange coupled magnetic multilayers
Lertzman-Lepofsky, George
Terko, Afan
Koraltan, Sabri
Suess, Dieter
Girt, Erol
Abert, Claas
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics
We conduct an exploration of the energy landscape of two coupled ferromagnetic layers with perpendicular-to-plane uniaxial anisotropy using finite-element micromagnetic simulations. These multilayers can be used to produce noncollinearity in spin-transfer torque magnetic random-access memory cells, which has been shown to increase the performance of this class of computer memory. We show that there exists a range of values of the interlayer exchange coupling constants for which the magnetic state of these multilayers can relax into two energy minima. The size of this region is determined by the difference in the magnitude of the layer anisotropies and is minimized when this difference is large. In this case, there is a wide range of experimentally achievable coupling constants that can produce desirable and stable noncollinear alignment. We investigate the energy barriers separating the local and global minima using string method simulations, showing that the stabilities of the minima increase with increasing difference in the anisotropy of the ferromagnetic layers. We provide an analytical solution to the location of the minima in the energy landscape of coupled macrospins, which has good agreement with our micromagnetic results for a case involving ferromagnetic layers with the same thickness and anisotropy, no demagnetization field, and large exchange stiffness. These results are important to understand how best to employ noncollinear coupling in the next generation of thin film magnetic devices.
title Energy landscape of noncollinear exchange coupled magnetic multilayers
topic Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.15910