Interlayer Exchange Coupling in Magnetic Hard-Soft Bilayered Structures
Broadband ferromagnetic resonance (FMR) and high-temperature (T) FMR measurements are carried out to study interlayer exchange coupling (IEC) in a magnetic hard-soft bilayered system where the hard layer is a FePt thin film with strong perpendicular anisotropy and the soft layer is a thin film made of Fe, Co, or their alloys. The data indicate that the effective exchange field (H ex ) produced by the IEC on the soft layer increases with a decrease in the thickness or saturation induction (4πM s ) of the soft layer. With an increase in T, H ex drops by an amount larger than 4πM s . The effective damping constant of the soft layer increases with H ex and can vary by two orders of magnitude. In samples with H ex > 4πM s , the damping constant is insensitive to the choice of material of the soft layer. In samples with H ex < 4πM s , the damping constant strongly depends on the choice of material. When T is increased from room temperature to the Curie temperature of the hard layer, the FMR linewidth drops significantly in samples where H ex is relatively large, but remains constant or even increases slightly at high T in samples where H ex is very small. Furthermore, the effects of H ex on the damping and linewidth can be understood by considering two distinct components in the overall damping, an intrinsic component mainly due to spin-flip magnon-electron scattering and an extrinsic component due to IEC-associated spin pumping at the interface.