Magnetic relaxations in metallic multilayers

Abstract

The intrinsic damping mechanism in metals caused by incoherent scattering of itinerant electron-hole pair excitations by phonons and magnons will be reviewed. The unique features of magnetic relaxations in multilayers were studied by ferromagnetic resonance (FMR) using magnetic single, Au–Fe–GaAs(001), and double layer Au–Fe–Au–Fe–GaAs(001) structures prepared by molecular beam epitaxy. The magnetic relaxation in single-layer films is described by the Gilbert damping with no extrinsic contributions to the FMR linewidth. These films provided an excellent opportunity to investigate nonlocal damping. The main result of these studies is that ultrathin Fe films in magnetic double layers acquire an additional interface Gilbert damping. This is in agreement with recent predictions of nonlocal interface damping which is based on the transport of spin angular momentum between the ferromagnetic layers. Measurements of the nonlocal Gilbert damping offer a possibility to carry out quantitative studies of the relaxation torques caused by nonlocal spin momentum transfer. Numerical simulations of magnetization reversal and stationary precession for an applied perpendicular current in Au–Fe–Au–Fe–GaAs(001) multilayers will be shown.