Tuning N\'{e}el temperature and anisotropy of magnetoelectric Cr$_{2}$O$_{3}$ via doping for enhanced performance in voltage-controlled spintronic devices

Spintronic devices have been considered a promising route to revolutionizing current logic and memory technologies. This work is an effort to realizing such spintronic devices by voltage-control of the magnetoelectric Cr$_{2}$O$_{3}$. The electrically switchable boundary magnetization of Cr$_{2}$O$_{3\, }$can be used to voltage-control the magnetic states of an adjacent ferromagnet. For this technique to be utilized in a spintronic device, the N\'{e}el temperature of Cr$_{2}$O$_{3\, }$must be increased above the bulk value of T$_{N}=$307K, Previously, B-doped Cr$_{2}$O$_{3\, }$thin films were fabricated via PLD showing boundary magnetization at elevated temperatures via magnetometry and spin polarized inverse photoemission spectroscopy (SPIPES). Temperature dependent exchange bias measurements of B-doped Cr$_{2}$O$_{3}$ were also investigated using VSM and MOKE. The data indicate a substantial increase in the blocking temperature by about 100K accompanied, however, by a detrimental change in the anisotropy of Cr$_{2}$O$_{3.\, }$Conclusions from magnetometry are supported by SPIPES. Chemical straining is investigated to recover anisotropy while maintaining increased blocking temperature. This project was supported by SRC through CNFD, an SRC-NRI Center under Task ID 2398.001, and by C-SPIN, part of STARnet, an SRC program sponsored by MARCO and DARPA (SRC 2381.001).