PUB - Publikationen an der Universität Bielefeld

Thin highly textured Fe1+xCo2-xSi(0 <= x <= 1) films were prepared on MgO (001) substrates by magnetron co-sputtering. Magneto-optic Kerr effect (MOKE) and ferromagnetic resonance (FMR) measurements were used to investigate the composition dependence of the magnetization, the magnetic anisotropy, the gyromagnetic ratio, and the relaxation of the films. Both MOKE and FMR measurements reveal a pronounced fourfold anisotropy for all films. In addition, we found a strong influence of the stoichiometry on the anisotropy as the cubic anisotropy strongly increases with increasing Fe concentration. The gyromagnetic ratio is only weakly dependent on the composition. We find low Gilbert damping parameters for all films with values down to 0.0012 +/-(0.0007)(0.0001) for Fe1.75Co1.25Si. The effective damping parameter for Co2FeSi is found to be 0.0018 +/-(0.0034)(0.0004). We also find a pronounced anisotropic relaxation, which indicates significant contributions of two-magnon scattering processes that is strongest along the easy axes of the films. This makes thin Fe1+xCo2-xSi films ideal materials for the application in spin transfer-torque magnetic RAM (STT-MRAM) devices. Published by AIP Publishing.