Interface Magnetism in Ferromagnetic Metal–compound Semiconductor Hybrid Structures

Abstract

Interfaces between dissimilar materials present a wide range of fascinating physical phenomena. When a nanoscale thin-film of a ferromagnetic metal is deposited in intimate contact with a compound semiconductor, the properties of the interface exhibit a wealth of novel behavior, having immense potential for technological application, and being of great interest from the perspective of fundamental physics. This article presents a review of recent advances in the field of interface magnetism in (001)-oriented ferromagnetic metal/III–V compound semiconductor hybrid structures. Until relatively recently, the majority of research in this area continued to concentrate almost exclusively on the prototypical epitaxial Fe / GaAs (001) system: now, a significant proportion of work has branched out from this theme, including ferromagnetic metal alloys, and other III–V compound semiconductors. After a general overview of the topic, and a review of the more recent literature, we discuss recent results where advances have been made in our understanding of the physics underpinning magnetic anisotropy in these systems: tailoring the terms contributing to the angular-dependent free-energy density by employing novel fabrication methods and ferromagnetic metal electrodes.

Antiferromagnetic structure in tetragonal CuMnAs thin films

“…there is a uniaxial magnetic easy axis which is parallel to one of the substrate <110> crystal axis. Similar uniaxial magnetic anisotropies are commonly observed in thin ferromagnetic films grown on III-V semiconductor substrates 23 24 . While the detailed mechanism is not fully established, it is known to originate from the reduced symmetry of the bonding at the interface.…”

Interfacial contribution to thickness dependent in-plane anisotropic magnetoresistance

“…For studies of magnetic anisotropy, systems can be designed with one dominant interface. 31,32 The Cu/Co/ Ir provides an analogous system with a single dominant interfacial contribution to AMR. To demonstrate this any contribution due to scattering at the Co/Cu interface or the current-shunting effect of the Cu seed-layer must be accounted for.…”

Optical Excitation of Propagating Magnetostatic Waves in an Epitaxial Galfenol Film by Ultrafast Magnetic Anisotropy Change

“…X-ray diffractometry showed that the Galfenol film has a mosaic structure with grain sizes of ∼12 nm, and their crystallographic axes misorientation of ∼1.3 deg. It is well established that thin films of iron and iron-based alloys epitaxially grown on GaAs exhibit intrinsic cubic and substrate-induced in-plane uniaxial magnetic anisotropies [36][37][38][39]. In particular, in Galfenol films on (001)-GaAs substrates the uniaxial anisotropy axis emerges along the [110] direction [35,40].…”