Extremely High Ferromagnetic Resonance Frequency Induced by Triclinic Lattice Distortion in Epitaxial FeCo/MgAl 2 O 4 (001) Films

• Published in: Physica status solidi. A, Applications and materials science Applications and materials science, 2023-09, Vol.220 (18)
• Main Authors: Ding, Congying, Wang, Le, Islam, Rabiul, Zhang, Shouheng, Wang, Xia, Li, Hongli, He, Wa, Zhu, Xingqi, Yao, Zhao, Jin, Zhejun, Zhao, Guoxia, Peng, Yong, Miao, Guo-Xing, Li, Shandong
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 1862-6300; 1862-6319
• DOI: 10.1002/pssa.202300438

Theoretically, tetragonal lattice distortion of FeCo epitaxial films can result in a very large in‐plane magnetic anisotropy field, leading to an extremely high ferromagnetic resonance (FMR) frequency. Herein, thin films are epitaxially grown on (001) MgAl 2 O 4 single‐crystal substrates. A triclinic lattice distortion with , instead of a tetragonal one, is found in the FeCo films. The cubic symmetry breaking leads to a deviation of easy axes from the directions, forming a distribution of magnetic moments with a strong perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA) along the out‐of‐plane [001] directions and a deviation of the in‐plane components from the ([10 100]) directions. The effective field of the former is as high as 1.5–2.5 T, enough to overcome the thin film shape anisotropy, while that of the latter stays at a low value of around 0.05 T. The strain‐induced PMA gradually relaxes to in‐plane for thicker films with a strained sublayer remaining. As a result, an extremely high out‐of‐plane FMR frequency over 40 GHz is achieved, accompanied by a lower in‐plane FMR frequency around 8 GHz. This study provides a possible approach to prepare self‐biased soft magnetic films with extremely high‐resonance frequency for applications in microwave‐integrated circuits.