Room-temperature helimagnetism in FeGe thin films

Journal article

Chiral magnets are promising materials for the realisation of high-density and low-power spintronic memory devices. For these future applications, a key requirement is the synthesis of appropriate materials in the form of thin films ordering well above room temperature. Driven by the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction, the cubic compound FeGe exhibits helimagnetism with a relatively high transition temperature of 278K in bulk crystals. We demonstrate that this temperature can be enhanced significantly in thin films. Using x-ray spectroscopic and ferromagnetic resonance techniques, we provide unambiguous experimental evidence for long-wavelength helimagnetic order at room temperature and magnetic properties similar to the bulk material. We obtain αintr = 0:0036 ± 0:0003 at 310K for the intrinsic damping parameter. We probe the dynamics of the system by means of muon-spin rotation, indicating that the ground state is reached via a freezing out of slow dynamics. Our work paves the way towards the fabrication of thin films of chiral magnets that host certain spin whirls, so-called skyrmions, at room temperature and potentially offer integrability into modern electronics.

Authors: Zhang, S; Stasinopoulos, I; Lancaster, T; Xiao, F; Bauer, A

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Nature Publishing Group
• Journal: Scientific Reports
• Volume: 7
• Article number: 123
• Publication date: 2017-02-01
• Acceptance date: 2017-02-14
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-017-00201-z
• ISSN: 2045-2322
• Keywords: sputtering; skyrmions; FeGe