The use of magnetic insulators is attracting a lot of interest due to a rich variety of spin-dependent phenomena with potential applications to spintronic devices. Here we report ultra-thin yttrium iron garnet (YIG) / gadolinium iron garnet (GdIG) insulating bilayers on gadolinium iron garnet (GGG). From spin Hall magnetoresistance (SMR) and X-ray magnetic circular dichroism measurements, we show that the YIG and GdIG magnetically couple antiparallel even in moderate in-plane magnetic fields. The results demonstrate an all-insulating equivalent of a synthetic antiferromagnet in a garnet-based thin film heterostructure and could open new venues for insulators in magnetic devices. As an example, we demonstrate a memory element with orthogonal magnetization switching that can be read by SMR.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1803.05545,
title = {Synthetic antiferromagnetic coupling between ultra-thin insulating garnets},
author = {Juan M. Gomez-Perez and Saül Vélez and Lauren McKenzie-Sell and Mario Amado and Javier Herrero-Martín and Josu López-López and S. Blanco-Canosa and Luis E. Hueso and Andrey Chuvilin and Jason W. A. Robinson and Fèlix Casanova},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1803.05545},
year = {2018}
}
Comments
12 pages, 5 figures, Supplemental Material (3 pages)