Interfacial Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya Interaction: Effect of 5d Band Filling and Correlation with Spin Mixing Conductance

Xin Ma; Guoqiang Yu; Chi Tang; Xiang Li; Congli He; Jing Shi; Kang L Wang; Xiaoqin Li

doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.120.157204

Interfacial Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya Interaction: Effect of 5d Band Filling and Correlation with Spin Mixing Conductance

Phys Rev Lett. 2018 Apr 13;120(15):157204. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.120.157204.

Authors

Xin Ma^{1

2}, Guoqiang Yu^{3

4}, Chi Tang⁵, Xiang Li³, Congli He³, Jing Shi⁵, Kang L Wang^{3

6}, Xiaoqin Li¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Physics, Center for Complex Quantum Systems, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78712, USA.
² Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106, USA.
³ Department of Electrical Engineering, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA.
⁴ Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China.
⁵ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Riverside, California 92521, USA.
⁶ Department of Physics, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA.

PMID: 29756869
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.120.157204

Abstract

The Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI) at the heavy metal (HM) and ferromagnetic metal (FM) interface has been recognized as a key ingredient in spintronic applications. Here we investigate the chemical trend of DMI on the 5d band filling (5d^{3}-5d^{10}) of the HM element in HM/FM (FM=CoFeB,Co)/MgO multilayer thin films. DMI is quantitatively evaluated by measuring asymmetric spin wave dispersion using Brillouin light scattering. Sign reversal and 20 times modification of the DMI coefficient D have been measured as the 5d HM element is varied. The chemical trend can be qualitatively understood by considering the 5d and 3d bands alignment at the HM/FM interface and the subsequent orbital hybridization around the Fermi level. Furthermore, a correlation is observed between DMI and effective spin mixing conductance at the HM/FM interfaces. Our results provide new insights into the interfacial DMI for designing future spintronic devices.