Electric-Field Modulation of Interface Magnetic Anisotropy and Spin Reorientation Transition in (Co/Pt)3/PMN-PT Heterostructure

Ying Sun; You Ba; Aitian Chen; Wei He; Wenbo Wang; Xiaoli Zheng; Lvkuan Zou; Yijun Zhang; Qu Yang; Lingjia Yan; Ce Feng; Qinghua Zhang; Jianwang Cai; Weida Wu; Ming Liu; Lin Gu; Zhaohua Cheng; Ce-Wen Nan; Ziqiang Qiu; Yizheng Wu; Jia Li; Yonggang Zhao

doi:10.1021/acsami.7b00284

Electric-Field Modulation of Interface Magnetic Anisotropy and Spin Reorientation Transition in (Co/Pt)₃/PMN-PT Heterostructure

ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2017 Mar 29;9(12):10855-10864. doi: 10.1021/acsami.7b00284. Epub 2017 Mar 16.

Authors

Ying Sun¹, You Ba¹, Aitian Chen¹, Wei He², Wenbo Wang³, Xiaoli Zheng², Lvkuan Zou², Yijun Zhang⁴, Qu Yang⁴, Lingjia Yan¹, Ce Feng¹, Qinghua Zhang², Jianwang Cai², Weida Wu³, Ming Liu⁴, Lin Gu², Zhaohua Cheng², Ce-Wen Nan, Ziqiang Qiu⁵, Yizheng Wu⁶, Jia Li⁷, Yonggang Zhao¹

Affiliations

¹ Collaborative Innovation Center of Quantum Matter , Beijing 100084, China.
² Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences , Beijing 100190, China.
³ Department of Physics and Astronomy, Rutgers University , Piscataway, New Jersey 08854, United States.
⁴ Electronic Materials Research Laboratory, Key Laboratory of the Ministry of Education & International Center for Dielectric Research, Xi'an Jiaotong University , Xi'an 710049, China.
⁵ Department of Physics, University of California at Berkeley , Berkeley, California 94720, United States.
⁶ Department of Physics, State Key Laboratory of Surface Physics and Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, Fudan University , Shanghai 200433, China.
⁷ International Center for Quantum Materials, School of Physics, Peking University , Beijing 100871, China.

PMID: 28266829
DOI: 10.1021/acsami.7b00284

Abstract

We report electric-field control of magnetism of (Co/Pt)₃ multilayers involving perpendicular magnetic anisotropy with different Co-layer thicknesses grown on Pb(Mg,Nb)O₃-PbTiO₃ (PMN-PT) FE substrates. For the first time, electric-field control of the interface magnetic anisotropy, which results in the spin reorientation transition, was demonstrated. The electric-field-induced changes of the bulk and interface magnetic anisotropies can be understood by considering the strain-induced change of magnetoelastic energy and weakening of Pt 5d-Co 3d hybridization, respectively. We also demonstrate the role of competition between the applied magnetic field and the electric field in determining the magnetization of the sample with the coexistence phase. Our results demonstrate electric-field control of magnetism by harnessing the strain-mediated coupling in multiferroic heterostructures with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy and are helpful for electric-field modulations of Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction and Rashba effect at interfaces to engineer new functionalities.

Keywords: (Co/Pt)3 multilayers; coexistence phase; electric-field modulation of magnetism; interface magnetic anisotropy; perpendicular magnetic anisotropy; spin reorientation transition.