Speaker: Paul STEADMAN (Responsable de la ligne I10 au Synchroton Diamond)

Abstract : A study of the electric current induced hysteresis in Pt/CoFeTaB thin films revealed an unexpected behaviour in the hysteresis curves measured using polarised soft X-ray reflectivity [1]. Following a detailed study of the polarisation dependence of the reflected intensity [2] both detailed calculations and experimental data revealed that the switching is Y type (magnetisation switching perpendicular to the current), is very sensitive to external magnetic fields and that, rather bizarrely, only part of the film is switching. In addition the importance of non-linear dependence on the magnetic scattering and its dependence on polarisation and energy have been uncovered experimentally and explained with a very simple model.

• [1] D. M. Burn, R. Fan, O. Inyang, M. Tokac¸ L. Bouchenoire, A. T. Hindmarch and P. Steadman, P. (2022). Phys. Rev. B, 106, 094429.
• [2] Raymond Fan, Kiranjot, Razan O. M. Aboljadayel, Kalel Alsaeed, Peter, J. Synchrotron Rad. (2024). 31, 493–507