Fourfold anisotropic magnetic damping induced by anisotropic spin absorption in amorphous CoFeB/epitaxial IrMn3 bilayers

Abstract

Magnetic damping rooted in various relaxation processes of spin angular momentum plays a crucial role in determining the energy consumption and the operating speed of emerging spintronic devices. Here, we reported a fourfold anisotropic magnetic damping extrinsically caused by spin current absorption in amorphous ferromagnetic/antiferromagnetic bilayers. The angular dependent broadband ferromagnetic resonance measurements were employed to investigate the effect of interfacial exchange coupling on magnetization dynamics of the CoFeB/IrMn3 bilayers. In addition to the conventional exchange bias, the amorphous CoFeB layer exhibits an induced fourfold magnetic anisotropy along the IrMn3⟨100⟩ axes because of the exchange coupling with the uncompensated IrMn3 moments along IrMn3⟨100⟩ caused by the 3Q antiferromagnetic structure. The magnetic damping of the CoFeB/IrMn3 bilayer also exhibits an obvious fourfold symmetry, which is ascribed to the anisotropic spin absorption caused by the uncompensated IrMn3 moments. The ratio of the fourfold anisotropic magnetic damping decreases dramatically with reducing the interfacial exchange coupling. When the interfacial exchange coupling is isolated by a Cu spacer layer, both the induced magnetic anisotropy and the magnetic damping exhibit a uniaxial symmetry.