High-Throughput Design of Interfacial Perpendicular Magnetic Anisotropy at Heusler/MgO Heterostructures

Elucidate interfacial disorder effects on the perpendicular magnetic anisotropy at Fe/MgO heterostructure from first-principles calculations

The interfacial perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA) plays a key role in spintronic applications such as memory recording and computational devices. Despite robust PMA being reported at the Fe/MgO interface, there are still inconsistencies in the disorder effects on the interfacial magnetic anisotropy. Here we reported a comprehensive study of the influence of the interfacial disorder, including the underoxidization, overoxidization, and oxygen migration, on the PMA of the Fe/MgO interface using first-principles calculations. Compared to the pristine Fe/MgO interface, the underoxidation at the Fe/MgO interface keeps the interfacial PMA but reduces the interfacial anisotropy constant (K_i). The overoxidization and oxygen migration at the interface both reduce theK_iand even switch the easy magnetization axis from the out-of-plane to in-plane direction at high oxygen percentage. In all the cases, theK_iwas found strongly correlated to the difference of the orbital magnetic moment along the in-plane and out-of-plane direction. Calculated layer-resolved and orbital-resolvedK_irevealed that the orbital coupling between thed_xyanddx2-y2states of the interfacial Fe layer plays a key role in determining the interfacial magnetic anisotropy. This work provides deep insights into the oxidation effects on the interfacial magnetic anisotropy of Fe/MgO system and a possible avenue to tune theK_ivia interfacial engineering.

Theoretical scheme of the nonvolatile strain switchable high/low resistance based on the novel strain-tunable magnetic anisotropy in Mn2.25Co0.75Ga0.5Sn0.5/MgO superlattice

It is great desirable to effectively tune electronic and magnetic properties by simple means such as applying external electrical fields or strains in spintronics research. Here, we investigate the strain...