Ferromagnetic resonance investigation of physical origins of modification of the perpendicular magnetic anisotropy in Pd/Co layered films in the presence of hydrogen gas

Abstract

In our work, we study the physical origins of the hydrogen gas induced reduction of the strength of perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA) at the interface of cobalt and palladium layers. To this end, we grow these films on flexible substrates and carry out ferromagnetic resonance (FMR) measurements in the presence of two different stimuli—hydrogen gas and elastic strain. Exposing the samples to H2 results in a downshift of the FMR field. On the contrary, FMR measurements carried out in the presence of an externally applied predominantly tensile elastic stress show an up-shift in the resonance field consistent with negative values of the saturation magnetostriction coefficient for our samples. Qualitative analysis of these results demonstrates that the magneto-elastic contribution to the hydrogen-induced change in PMA is very small and is of the opposite sign to the electronic contribution related to the influence of hydrogen ions on the hybridisation of cobalt and palladium orbitals at the interface.