Nanosecond resolved techniques for dynamical magnetization reversal measurements

M. Bonfim, K. Mackay, S. Pizzini, M-L. Arnou, A. Fontaine et al. Citation: J. Appl. Phys. 87, 5974 (2000); doi: 10.1063/1.372584 View online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.372584 View Table of Contents: http://jap.aip.org/resource/1/JAPIAU/v87/i9 Published by the American Institute of Physics.

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JOURNAL OF APPLIED PHYSICS

VOLUME 87, NUMBER 9

1 MAY 2000

Nanosecond resolved techniques for dynamical magnetization reversal measurements

M. Bonm,a) K. Mackay, S. Pizzini, M-L. Arnou, and A. Fontaine
CNRS, Laboratoire Louis Neel, BP 166, F-38042 Grenoble, France

G. Ghiringhelli, S. Pascarelli, and T. Neisius

European Synchrotron Radiation Facility, BP 220, F-38043 Grenoble, France

In this article we present three techniques developed by our group for probing magnetization dynamics in the nanosecond time scale. All these techniques are based on the magneto-optical interaction of materials with polarized light. Magnetic excitation is provided by microcoils able to generate eld pulses of some teslas within a few nanoseconds. Standard Kerr/Faraday dynamic measurements and imaging can be performed as well as time-resolved x-ray magnetic circular dichroism where chemical selectivity can be achieved. 2000 American Institute of Physics. S0021-8979 00 91508-1

INTRODUCTION

Magnetization dynamics of magnetic lms in the nanosecond regime is an essential issue for the future of magnetic recording and nonvolatile magnetic memories.1,2 Measurements on these time scales involve the ability of generating fast magnetic or thermal pulses and detecting the magnetization process by means of high frequency techniques. We have developed microcoils associated with fast current sources able to generate magnetic pulses as high as 8 T with rise time of some nanoseconds. Three different systems for probing the magnetization of thin lms on the nanosecond scale were developed: magneto-optical Kerr effect, magnetooptical imaging, and x-ray magnetic circular dichroism XMCD .

and 25 ns wide pulses. Another current driver based on fast capacitor discharge has allowed 50 T/30 ns pulses with a repetition rate of about 1 Hz.
TIME RESOLVED MAGNETO-OPTICAL KERR EFFECT

MICROCOILS AND PULSED SOURCES

A set of single turn microcoils with inner dimensions ranging from 50 to 800 m was developed. Figure 1 shows two types of microcoils. In type a a copper layer of 30 m is electrochemically deposited over the silicon substrate. The sample placed on the top of the coil is submitted to a magnetic eld that is perpendicular to its plane. In type b the copper is deposited on the inner region of the window made in the silicon substrate. The applied eld is then parallel to the sample that is placed inside the coil. Characterization of the eld on these coils was done either by calculation or measurements with paramagnetic materials.3 The current drivers developed for these microcoils are based on fast power metaloxidesemiconductor eld effect transistor. Peak currents up to 700 A can be obtained with typical dI/dt on the order of 5 A/ns. This allows elds up to 8 T to be generated with the 50 m microcoils without damage. The repetition rate can go up to 360 kHz for 0.7-T-high
a

A simple way to dynamically probe the magnetization in the nanosecond scale is by means of visible light. Interactions of the light with matter take place in the 10 15 s range, so it can be neglected when probing phenomena slower than 10 12 s. In addition, the use of light as the probe makes the measure relatively immune to the strong electromagnetic noise EM present in the high current pulse generation. We have chosen the magneto-optical Kerr and Faraday effects for probing opaque and transparent materials, respectively. Figure 2 shows schematically the setup developed for this purpose. Polarized light from a 5 mW HeNe or diode laser is shone onto the sample placed in or on the microcoil. The polarization of the reected or transmitted light is then analyzed and its intensity detected with a fast Si photodiode 100 MHz BW . The signal is then measured using a fast digitizing oscilloscope 500 MHz BW, 1 GS/s and transferred to a computer. The analyzer is placed at 45 with respect to the polarizer, where we have the highest sensitivity

Electronic mail: bonm@polycnrs-gre.fr 5974

FIG. 1. Microcoils for applying elds perpendicular a or parallel to the sample b . 2000 American Institute of Physics

0021-8979/2000/87(9)/5974/3/$17.00

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J. Appl. Phys., Vol. 87, No. 9, 1 May 2000

Bonm et al.

5975

FIG. 2. Schematic diagram of the optical setup for dynamical Kerr and Faraday measurements.

FIG. 4. Dynamic image sequence of a garnet before and after a 0.2 T/50 ns pulse applied at t 0 by a 50 m 1000 m coil. Each frame measures 50 m 100 m.

and linearity between the angle and the intensity. Statistical noise is greatly reduced by averaging some measurements taken in the same conditions. In order to eliminate the synchronous EM noise, the analyzer is ipped from 45 to 45 between each successive measurement and the difference gives the nal value. A resolution of 5 rad on the polarization plane is achieved in 3 min of acquisition time. Differently from other dynamic Kerr techniques based on a pumpprobe scheme,4,5 this real time approach allows single shot measurements, useful to probe nonreproducible magnetic states. Magnetic thin lms like garnets, Co, Fe, Ni, TbFe, PtCo multilayers, amorphous GdCo and TbCo, were dynamically probed with this setup. Exploiting the ability to have high pulsed elds, a high perpendicular anisotropy lm was studied. The samples consist of a 7- m-thick crystalline lm of YGdTmBr 3 FeGa 5O12, grown by liquid phase epitaxy over a GGG gadolinium gallium garnet substrate. Figure 3 shows the magnetization dynamics of this sample for a pulsed eld applied perpendicular to the lm 0.24 T/50 ns , using the coil shown in Fig. 1 a . The laser circular spot focalized on the sample has about the same dimensions of

the magnetic domains. The result shown is the average in time of 1000 single shot measurements it takes about 20 s . The inset shows two single shot measurements with the same conditions. Since the applied eld is strong enough to saturate the magnetization of the sample, nonreproducible magnetic states are found, which can be conrmed by the different shape of the reversal in a single shot compared to an averaged measurement. This is due to the high perfection of the garnet, where domain nucleation can occur randomly in the lm, once the magnetization was saturated. These results can be better understood with the dynamic image sequence shown in the next topic.
TIME RESOLVED MAGNETO-OPTICAL IMAGING

FIG. 3. Time response of a garnet lm YGdTmB 3 FeGa 5O12 for a 0.24 T/50 ns pulsed eld time averaged of 1000 single shots . Inset shows two single shot measurements taken with identical conditions, giving evidence of the nonreproducibility of the magnetization reversal.

Three different mechanisms are known to take part in the magnetization reversal dynamics of thin lms in the nanosecond scale:6 domain nucleation, domain wall propagation, and coherent rotation. The rst two mechanisms are essentially thermally activated7,8 and dominate the reversal in the low eld low frequency regime. Coherent rotation is not thermally activated and typically occurs for high eld high frequency magnetic elds.6 In order to distinguish and study these mechanisms, magneto-optical imaging appears to be a powerful technique for dimensions down to submicron.4 With the same optical setup used for dynamical Kerr and Faraday measurements, we have developed a magnetooptical, imaging system, having as detector a charge-coupled device camera. It is based on a pumpprobe technique, where the pump is the magnetic pulse and the probe is a ash of light from a laser diode 850 nm, 5 ns full width at half-maximum . This is a new and inexpensive way to replace the pico- or femtosecond lasers normally used for this kind of experiment, in detriment of the time resolution subnanosecond laser diodes are already available . This setup has permitted us to visualize magnetic domain motion with a spatial resolution of about 0.7 m and a time resolution of 5 ns. Figure 4 shows a series of images from a YGdTmBi 3 FeGa 5O12 garnet, taken before and after the application of a pulsed eld 0.2 T/50 ns at room tempera-

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Bonm et al.

ture. As already discussed previously, once the magnetization of this sample is saturated, reversal occurs randomly, preventing the use of a pumpprobe technique. Therefore, the amplitude of the applied eld was chosen in order to avoid complete saturation of the probed region. One can see that, in this system, the magnetization reversal process in this time scale is dominated by domain wall propagation instead of nucleation or coherent rotation. The domain wall speed after the magnetic pulse duration can be easily calculated from two subsequent images and has an average value of 35 m/s. Domains enlarge up to a dimension a bit bigger than the steady state and then relax to a static condition. This can be also seen in Fig. 3 negative overshoot on time response . The coil used here gives rise to a vertical gradient of eld, having its maxima near the borders top and bottom and a minimum at the center. This explains why the regions near the borders are completely saturated while in the center some domains remain. This also explains the bubblelike domains in the center and ribbonlike domains near the borders.
TIME RESOLVED XMCD

1500 eV or hard 515 keV x rays can be chosen depending on the element and shell to be analyzed. The absorption signal is measured in total uorescence yield for the soft x rays or in transmission for the hard x rays. In the eld of soft x rays, absorption takes place in a few tens of angstroms, which makes the measurement feasible for very thin layers deposited on an unspecied substrate. The acquisition time for a 400 point dynamic curve is about 5 min, including change of the photon helicity. The ultimate time resolution is 100 ps, limited by the width of the x-ray pulse. Previous measurements done on GdCo thin lms were reported in Ref. 11. New results obtained for spin valve systems will soon be reported elsewhere.
CONCLUSION

Magneto-optical analysis with visible light cannot separate the contribution of each magnetic layer in heterostructures such as spin valves.9,10 To overcome this limitation, a time-resolved technique based on x-ray magnetic circular dichroism XMCD was developed by our group at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility ESRF .11 The technique takes advantage of the ESRF single bunch structure, associated with the microcoil setup for the generation of magnetic eld pulses synchronized with the photons bunches in a pumpprobe scheme. The time dependence is analyzed by changing the time delay between the pump the magnetic pulse and the probe the 100-ps-long x-ray pulse , which have the same repetition rate 357 kHz . Element selectivity is obtained as the x-ray energy can be tuned to the absorption edge of the desired element. Soft 500

Three nanosecond resolved magneto-optic based techniques were developed by our group for studying magnetization dynamics of thin lms. Magneto-optical Kerr and Faraday setups can be used to measure single magnetic layers and their association with magneto-optical imaging gives a better understanding of the mechanisms present on the magnetization reversal domain nucleation and propagation, coherent rotation . Time resolved XMCD which provides element selectivity, is an extremely powerful tool for studying separately each magnetic layer in heterostructures like spin valves and multilayers.
W. D. Doyle, S. Stinnett, C. Dawson, and L. He, J. Magn. Soc. Jpn. 22, 91 1998 . 2 M. R. Freeman et al., J. Appl. Phys. 79, 5898 1996 . 3 M. Bonm and K. Mackay unpublished . 4 M. R. Freeman et al., J. Appl. Phys. 83, 6217 1998 . 5 T. J. Silva et al., J. Appl. Phys. 81, 5015 1997 . 6 R. H. Koch et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 81, 4512 1998 . 7 L. Neel, Ann. Geos. 5, 99 1949 . 8 W. F. Brown, Phys. Rev. 130, 1677 1963 . 9 G. Prinz, Phys. Today 48, 58 1995 . 10 J. S. Moodera et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 74, 3273 1995 . 11 M. Bonm et al., J. Synchrotron Radiat. 5, 750 1998 .
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