Effect of CoFe dusting layer and annealing on the magnetic properties of sputtered Ta/W/CoFeB/CoFe/MgO layer structures

Abstract

We explored the effect of a CoFe wedge inserted as a dusting layer (0.2 nm–0.4 nm thick) at the CoFeB/MgO interface of a sputtered Ta(2 nm)/W(3 nm)/CoFeB(0.9 nm)/MgO(3 nm)/Ta(2 nm) film—a typical structure for spin-orbit torque devices. Films were annealed at temperatures varying between 300 °C and 400 °C in an argon environment. Ferromagnetic resonance studies and vibrating sample magnetometry measurements were carried out to estimate the effective anisotropy field, the Gilbert damping, the saturation magnetization and the dead layer thickness as a function of the CoFe thickness and across several annealing temperatures. While the as-deposited films present only easy-plane anisotropy, a transition along the wedge from in-plane to out-of-plane was observed across several annealing temperatures, with evidence of a spin-reorientation transition separating the two regions.