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The doping effect of Al2O3 on the high-frequency electrical and magnetic properties of CoFeB soft magnetic thin films deposited on Si substrates using RF magnetron sputtering technique

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Abstract

Soft magnetic thin films have drawn tremendous interests in high-frequency spintronics applications. Here we demonstrate the doping effect of Al2O3 on the high-frequency electrical and magnetic properties of CoFeB soft magnetic thin films by systematically investigating the dependences of exchange constant A, saturation magnetization Ms and damping constant α on the Al2O3 doping concentration. In contrast to the decreased exchange constant due to the non-magnetic doping, the electrical resistivity of CoFeB thin films is found to be increased by the doping of Al2O3, indicating the suppression of eddy current loss in high-frequency application. Moreover, we found that the product of Ms and α which determines the critical switching current density of CoFeB thin films first increases and then decreases with the increasing doping concentration of Al2O3. The presented results demonstrated that high doping concentration of Al2O3 in CoFeB thin films is beneficial for the high-frequency spintronics applications.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank the financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos.: 51601093, 51571121, 11604148 and 61427812), Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant No: 30916011345), the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (Grant Nos.: BK20160833 and BK20160831), the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation Funded Project (Grant Nos.: 2015M571285, 2016M601811 and 2016M591851), the Postdoctoral Science Foundation Funded Project of Jiangsu Province (Grant No.: 1601268C), the Key Research & Development Program of Jiangsu Province (Grant No.: BE2017102), and Special Fund for the transformation of scientific and technological achievements in Jiangsu Province (BA2017121).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. MIIT Key Laboratory of Advanced Metallic and Intermetallic Materials Technology, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing, 210094, People’s Republic of China

    Muhammad Arif, Xiang Zhang, Muhammad Amir, Er Liu & Feng Xu

  2. Centre of Excellence in Solid State Physics, University of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan

    Ghulam Muhammad Mustafa

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  1. Muhammad Arif
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  2. Xiang Zhang
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  4. Ghulam Muhammad Mustafa
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  5. Er Liu
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  6. Feng Xu
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Correspondence to Er Liu or Feng Xu.

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Arif, M., Zhang, X., Amir, M. et al. The doping effect of Al2O3 on the high-frequency electrical and magnetic properties of CoFeB soft magnetic thin films deposited on Si substrates using RF magnetron sputtering technique. J Mater Sci: Mater Electron 31, 15539–15545 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10854-020-04117-9

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