Arbeitsgruppe Prof. Hillebrands

DFG-Normalverfahren CH 1037/3-1:
"Functional layers of nanometer-thick YIG films and microstructured surfaces for spintronic application"


Starting date: January 1st, 2016

 

Principal investigators:

Dr. Carsten Dubs (INNOVENT e.V. Technologieentwicklung, Jena)

Dr. habil. Andrii Chumak (Department of Physics, TU Kaiserslautern)

Prof. Dr. Burkard Hillebrands (Department of Physics, TU Kaiserslautern)

 


Magnonics is an increasingly growing new branch of spin-wave physics, specifically addressing the use of magnons for information transport and processing. Currently, most investigations being carried out use either 3d metals or alloys, such as Permalloy or garnets, such as Yttrium Iron Garnet (YIG), as the magnetic material. 3d metals and alloys can be processed conveniently, and magnonic device structures in the sub-micrometer range have been realized. However, they all have a rather high magnetic damping. Single crystalline Yttrium Iron Garnet, which is a magnetic insulator with the smallest known magnetic relaxation parameter for a practical material, appears to be a superior candidate for this purpose. As a bulk or thick film material it has a very low damping constant, allowing for magnon propagation over distances exceeding several centimeters.

Epitaxial YIG films are of particular interest, but the YIG functional layers should be nanometer-thick with extremely smooth surfaces in order to satisfy the requirements of prospective sophisticated applications. Hence, there are many efforts which have been made for the development of high-quality thin YIG films using different growth techniques such as magnetron sputtering and pulsed laser deposition techniques. Nevertheless, with any of these growth techniques the required performance of low damping single crystalline YIG material, which is commonly grown by the liquid phase epitaxy (LPE) technique, has been achieved. But in the past LPE were rather applied for micrometer-thick films then for nanometer-thin ones. Thus we seek to push the boundaries of LPE growth technology in order to get standard micrometer YIG film quality also for nanometer-thin films.

 

Crystalline structure of YIG

 

 

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