Research Update: Focused ion beam direct writing of magnetic patterns with controlled structural and magnetic properties

Abstract

APL MATERIALS 6 , 060701 (2018) Research Update: Focused ion beam direct writing of magnetic patterns with controlled structural and magnetic properties Michal Urb ́ anek, 1,2,a Luk ́ a ˇ s Flaj ˇ sman, 1 Viola K ˇ ri ˇ z ́ akov ́ a, 2 Jon ́ a ˇ s Gloss, 3 Michal Hork ́ y, 1 Michael Schmid, 3 and Peter Varga 1,3 1 CEITEC BUT, Brno University of Technology, Purky ˇ nova 123, 612 00 Brno, Czech Republic 2 Institute of Physical Engineering, Brno University of Technology, Technick ́ a 2, 616 69 Brno, Czech Republic 3 Institute of Applied Physics, TU Wien, 1040 Vienna, Austria (Received 13 March 2018; accepted 25 May 2018; published online 8 June 2018) Focused ion beam irradiation of metastable Fe 78 Ni 22 thin films grown on Cu(100) sub- strates is used to create ferromagnetic, body-centered cubic patterns embedded into paramagnetic, face-centered-cubic surrounding. The structural and magnetic phase transformation can be controlled by varying parameters of the transforming gallium ion beam. The focused ion beam parameters such as the ion dose, number of scans, and scanning direction can be used not only to control a degree of transformation but also to change the otherwise four-fold in-plane magnetic anisotropy into the uniaxial anisotropy along a specific crystallographic direction. This change is associated with a preferred growth of specific crystallographic domains. The possibility to create mag- netic patterns with continuous magnetization transitions and at the same time to create patterns with periodical changes in magnetic anisotropy makes this system an ideal candidate for rapid prototyping of a large variety of nanostructured samples. Namely, spin-wave waveguides and magnonic crystals can be easily combined into complex devices in a single fabrication step. © 2018 Author(s). All article content, except where otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license