Effect of Ir growth pressure on the domain wall dynamics in Ta/Pt/Co/Ir/Ta stacks

Abstract

The dynamical response of magnetic domain walls in ultra-thin magnetic films to external magnetic fields is determined not only by the composition and thickness of the layers but also by the growth conditions. Growth conditions can induce significant structural changes to the layers and at the interfaces between them, affecting in particular the dynamics of domain walls, their mobility, elastic tension, and the pinning forces acting on them. In this work, we focus specifically on the effect of Ir layer growth pressure in Ta/Pt/Co/Ir/Ta ultra-thin multilayered films. Measurements of the DC magnetic properties, domain wall velocity and domain morphology in the creep regime for both constant and alternating field pulses, were performed for a batch of samples where the Ir layer was grown at different pressures. We find that the saturation magnetization, the effective anisotropy constant and the domain wall surface tension grow with increasing pressure and saturate at a threshold pressure, while the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya field and the strength of the disorder remain practically unaltered over the range of pressures considered.