Dynamic critical curve of a synthetic antiferromagnet

Huy Pham, Dorin Cimpoesu, Andrei-Valentin Plamad, Alexandru Stancu, and Leonard Spinu Citation: Appl. Phys. Lett. 95, 222513 (2009); doi: 10.1063/1.3265739 View online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.3265739 View Table of Contents: http://apl.aip.org/resource/1/APPLAB/v95/i22 Published by the AIP Publishing LLC.

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APPLIED PHYSICS LETTERS 95, 222513 2009

Dynamic critical curve of a synthetic antiferromagnet

Huy Pham,1 Dorin Cimpoesu,2,a Andrei-Valentin Plamad,2 Alexandru Stancu,2 and Leonard Spinu1,b
1

Department of Physics and Advanced Materials Research Institute (AMRI), University of New Orleans, New Orleans, Louisiana 70148, USA 2 Department of Physics, Al. I. Cuza University, Iasi 700506, Romania

Received 30 July 2009; accepted 21 October 2009; published online 3 December 2009 In this letter, a dynamic generalization of static critical curves sCCs for synthetic antiferromagnet SAF structures is presented, analyzing the magnetization switching of SAF elements subjected to pulsed magnetic elds. The dependence of dynamic critical curves dCCs on eld pulses shape and length, on damping, and on magnetostatic coupling is investigated. Comparing sCCs, which are currently used for studying the switching in toggle magnetic random access memories, with dCCs, it is shown that a consistent switching can be achieved only under specic conditions that take into account the dynamics of the systems. The study relies on the LandauLifshitzGilbert equation. 2009 American Institute of Physics. doi:10.1063/1.3265739 The magnetization reversal in synthetic antiferromagnet SAF structures has been extensively studied due to their applications as hard layers of exchange coupled composite media,1 soft underlayers for perpendicular recording,2 pinned and free layers for magnetic random access memory MRAM,3 hard disk reading heads or magnetic sensors.4 The performance of the devices using SAF structures relies on their switching characteristics. The magnetization switching can be described using the concept of critical curve CC developed initially for uncoupled magnetic systems5 and then for coupled lms,6,7 CC being the locus of in-plane elds at which the irreversible magnetization reversal occurs but not the locus of all free energys critical points, as the name may suggests. Subsequently, CCs of SAF have been extensively studied due to their technological importance, especially for toggle MRAM.815 However, these descriptions are restricted to quasistatic regime, where the magnetization dynamics and precessional effects are neglected. The devices using SAF structures require a short access time and the magnetization is forced by pulsed magnetic elds to switch at nano and subnanosecond time scales for which the static CC sCC approach is not anymore adequate. For uncoupled systems it was shown that a pulsed magnetic eld can provide a high-speed switching16 below the static limit predicted by StonerWohlfarth SW model,17 and subsequently the dynamic CC of a SW particle was given.18 Later, dynamic and temperature effects on toggle MRAM operating eld19 and switching diagrams20 were presented. In this letter a dynamic generalization of sCCs for coupled magnetic systems is presented, analyzing the magnetization switching of SAF elements subject to pulsed magnetic elds while thermal effects are neglected. As in Ref. 18 for a SW particle, the boundary between switching/ nonswitching regions represents the generalization of sCC, namely the dynamic CC dCC. Comparing sCCs with dCCs it will be shown that a consistent switching can be achieved only under specic conditions that take into account the dynamics of the magnetic moments. Using dCCs we can also
a

Electronic mail: cdorin@uaic.ro. Electronic mail: lspinu@uno.edu.

better understand the toggle switching diagrams from Ref. 20. The model is based on LandauLifshitzGilbert LLG equation21 assuming that the magnetization in each layer is uniform. We consider that the two ferromagnetic layers are identical except for the thickness. As ferromagnetic material, permalloy with saturation magnetization M s = 10.8 106 / 4 A / m was used. The magnetic layers are assumed to be in the shape of ellipsoids making the demagnetizing eld uniform across the layer. The ellipsoids principal axes are taken along x, y , and z: 2a = 120 nm along Ox and 2b = 100 nm along Oy . The thickness of bottom layer is t1 = 5 nm, leading to demagnetizing factors Nx, Ny, Nz0.029, 0.039, 0.932 and to in-plane uniaxial shape anisotropy eld 0Hsh,1 = 0Ny Nx M s = 9.82 mT. Hereby two contributions to anisotropy are taken into account: an easy plane and an easy axis EA directed in this plane. In a static regime the easy plane anisotropy can be neglected. The thickness t2 of top layer is varied so that t = t2 / t1 1; a thickness imbalance also involves a shape anisotropy imbalance. The effective elds consist of applied eld, demagnetizing eld, phenomenological antiferromagnetic exchange coupling, and magnetostatic coupling. The last two are described by hJ = Wex / 2Ksh,1St1 and hmag = Wmag / 2Ksh,1V1, respectively, where Wex and Wmag are the exchange and magnetostatic energy when both layers are aligned along EA, S = ab is the layers area, and V1 is rst layers volume. The magnetostatic interaction eld was calculated using the method presented in Ref. 22. All magnetic elds presented throughout the paper are normalized by Hsh,1. Because an instantaneous change of the applied eld from zero to some value is not realistic, sinusoidal time dependence for the eld pulse rise and fall are assumed. The rise/fall time is a function of the pulses amplitude, so that the eld sweep rate H, dened as the ratio between the amplitude and pulses rise/fall time, is constant. The pulse width TH is the amount of time the pulse takes to go from zero to high and back to zero again. The nal state is taken after a time long enough to reach the equilibrium after the termination of applied pulse. In Fig. 1 we present sCCs for t = 0.8 and t = 1, obtained by making the determinant of free energys Hessian equal to
2009 American Institute of Physics

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FIG. 1. Color online sCCs for an asymmetric SAF a and for a symmetric one b. A strategy to point out CCs for an asymmetric SAF is to use an increasing bias eld perpendicular to EA, starting from , 0 state, and then a pulse eld parallel to EA, combined with a L-shaped bias eld and a pulse eld perpendicular to EA. For the symmetric case we apply a decreasing eld along EA, starting from positive saturation, and then a pulse eld perpendicular to EA.

0.6 For t = 0.8 Fig. 1a the interior curve consists of a heartlike part heart for short and an astroidlike part, the height of the last being around 0.05, so that it appears almost like a point in our gures. The free energy has one minimum M heart = 1 , 2 inside the heart, where 1, 2 denote the magnetization angle of the two layers with respect to EA, two minima M e,0 and M e,1 between hearts and the exterior curve M e,0 = 0 , and M e,1 = , 0 for no applied eld, and one minimum M sat outside the exterior CC.9 For hx 0 on the heart M e,0 M heart, and on the exterior CC M e,0 M sat, while the state M e,1 loses stability as it crosses both CCs. For t = 1 Fig. 1b the interior CC consists only of an astroidlike part, two pairs of degenerate minima existing inside it, one minimum outside the exterior CC and one pair of degenerate minima otherwise. In a static regime a discontinuous transition occurs when an increasing eld starting from zero crosses the right side of the astroidlike part. Decreasing the eld back to zero, a discontinuous transition occurs when the eld crosses the left side of the astroid, bringing the system back to the original state.12 A strategy to point out the CCs is to use both a bias and a pulse eld Fig. 1: for t = 0.8 we have to start from , 0, to apply a bias eld hbias perpendicular to EA, and then for each hbias value, eld pulses with different amplitudes along EA we denote with B1 this elds conguration. Comparing the system state before the pulse application with the state after completion of pulse, we identify two transitions: at the left side of the heart and at the exterior CC. In order to detect the right side of the heart we have to apply a L-shaped bias eld a bias eld perpendicular to EA and then a bias eld parallel to EA, so as to not induce any irreversible transition and eld pulses perpendicular to EA BL conguration. Because for t = 1 the B1 conguration cannot reveal the astroidlike CC, we decrease hbias along the EA, starting from positive saturation, and then for each hbias value, eld pulses are applied perpendicular to EA B2 conguration. This conguration can reveal the left sides of both astroidlike CCs, corresponding to hx 0 and hx 0, respectively. The sCCs are restricted to the static regime and does not take into account the dynamics of the magnetization, i.e., the SAF is subject to a slowly varying eld so that the system stays within one energy well and irreversible switches occur only when the state occupied by the system loses stability. If

FIG. 2. Color online Switching diagram of an asymmetric SAF: sweep rate dependence for = 0.008 a, b, a, and b, and pulse length dependence for = 1 c, d, c, and d. The B1 conguration was used for a, b, c, and d, and correspondingly the BL conguration for a, b, c, and d. Each point hx , hy is the coordinate of the total vector eld hbias + hpulse when hpulse reached its peak value.

the pulse eld has a rise time shorter than the relaxation time, then the precessional term from LLG equation can carry the magnetization over a large range of motion before energy is dissipated precessional regime. Also, there is an out of plane component of magnetization. In order to determine the parameters values for reliable operation of a MRAM cell, we have studied the switching properties as a function of pulses shape and length, damping, and magnetostatic coupling. The switching behavior of an asymmetric SAF is presented in Fig. 2. From Figs. 2a and 2b, we can see that for a damping coefcient = 0.008, typical for Permalloy,23 the nal state is sensitive to the sweep rate H. As H increases the nonswitching region corresponding to outermost dCC shrinks and an instability region, with switching/ nonswitching fringes, grows up because a signicant ringing of the magnetic moments still exists during the eld pulse and the nal state is determined by the positions of the moments at the end of the pulse. The region corresponding to interior dCC, where switches can occur, is enlarged compared to sCC, and what is important to observe is that only a digit or word eld applied at 45 with respect to EA in toggle MRAM, can switch the magnetization. Consequently, using sCCs instead of dCCs can lead to inadvertent switching of half-selected memory cells. Also, we observe that irreversible switches appear when the eld crosses the upper part of right part of the heart, in contrast with the static case. In order to minimize dynamical effects, rare-earth dopants were used in Ref. 24 to increase describing the energy dissipation and magnetizations relaxation into the magnetic

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FIG. 4. Color online Switching diagrams of an asymmetric SAF, taking into account both exchange and magnetostatic coupling.

FIG. 3. Color online Switching diagrams of a symmetric SAF using B2 conguration ac and B1 conguration d and e, respectively.

instead of dCCs can lead to inadvertent switching of halfselected memory cells. In dealing with the problem of improving the MRAM speed and reliability, one need to pay attention to the parameters describing the pulses shape, damping parameter, and the magnetostatic coupling. Work was partially supported by NSF under Grant No. ECCS-0902086, and by Romanian PNII-RP3 under Grant Nos. 9/1.07.2009 and PNII 12-093 HIFI.
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elds direction. As increases the instability fades away Figs. 2c and 2d, and by systematic simulations it was observed that for TH = 3 ns the interior dCC shrinks toward sCC and the exterior dCC expands to sCC, so that for = 0.05 dCCs pretty much concur with sCCs. Further, for 0.05 the magnetization cannot follow the applied eld and dCCs shift toward higher elds. Instead, using longer pulses dCCs move back toward sCCs. Similarly, in the case of symmetric SAF, as H increases the nonswitching region corresponding to outermost dCC shrinks and an instability region grows up Figs. 3a and 3b. The regions corresponding to interior CC, shrink a little bit, and are almost independent on H. As increases the instability fades away and the interior dCCs shift toward higher elds Fig. 3c. However, B2 conguration cannot reveal the entire exterior dCC, and in Figs. 3d and 3e we combine this method with B1 conguration: the system switches when the increasing eld crosses the right branch of the interior CC and reverses back when the decreasing eld crosses the left branch, so that the interior CC is not revealed, but the switch corresponding to the exterior CC can be detected. Until now we have considered that the magnetostatic coupling is absorbed into the exchange constant hJ. However, due to the elliptical shape of the layers the magnetostatic elds not only depend on the angle between the magnetization of the two layers, like the exchange coupling, but also on each moment direction. From Figs. 2a, 2b, and 4 we can see the differences between exchange and magnetostatic coupling, the exterior sCC expands toward higher elds, while the interior CC shifts toward origin, increasing the possibility of undesirable switching of half-selected memory cells. In summary, based on the magnetization vectors dynamics, the dCCs and switching properties of a SAF element have been presented. We have shown that usage of sCCs

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