Experimental evidence of the strain-enhanced magnetic anisotropy in antiferromagnet Cr<sub>2</sub>O<sub>3 </sub>thin films

ORAL

Abstract

Strain-induced magnetic anisotropy has long been studied to control magnetic properties of ferro- and ferri-magnetic thin films. However, in antiferromagnetic (AFM) thin films, the effect of epitaxial strain on magnetic anisotropy has not yet been experimentally investigated. Here we perform spin Seeback effect (SSE) measurements on epitaxial Cr2O3 thin films grown on Al2O3 substrates to demonstrate the presence of the strain-enhanced magnetic anisotropy. Different tensile strains produced by varying the film thickness and annealing temperatures are characterized by X-ray diffraction, which reveals a correlation between the epitaxial strain and resulting spin flop (SF) transition. From the SSE results of these films with different strains, we observe significantly enhanced SF fields compared to the reported bulk result. The large contrast in the SF fields between thin film and bulk Cr2O3 indicates the existence of strong strain-induced magnetic anisotropy due to the magnetoelastic effect. Therefore, the epitaxial strain can potentially tune the magnetic anisotropy and consequently spin dynamics in Cr2O3 and other AFM thin films for AFM spintronic applications.

*We acknowledge SHINES, an EFRC funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, Basic Energy Sciences under award no. SC0012670.

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Presenters

  • Haoyu Liu

    • University of California, Riverside

Authors

  • Haoyu Liu

    • University of California, Riverside

  • Wei Yuan

    • University of California, Riverside
    • Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Riverside

  • Junxue Li

    • University of California, Riverside
    • Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Riverside

  • Victor H. Ortiz

    • University of California, Riverside
    • Mechanical Engineering, University of California, Riverside

  • Jing Shi

    • University of California, Riverside