Kavli Affiliate: David A. Muller
| First 5 Authors: Jiangteng Liu, Ryan Schoell, Xiyue S. Zhang, Hongbin Yang, M. B. Venuti
| Summary:
Disordered iron germanium (FeGe) has recently garnered interest as a testbed
for a variety of magnetic phenomena as well as for use in magnetic memory and
logic applications. This is partially owing to its ability to host skyrmions
and antiskyrmions — nanoscale whirlpools of magnetic moments that could serve
as information carriers in spintronic devices. In particular, a tunable
skyrmion-antiskyrmion system may be created through precise control of the
defect landscape in B20-phase FeGe, motivating developing methods to
systematically tune disorder in this material and understand the ensuing
structural properties. To this end, we investigate a route for modifying
magnetic properties in FeGe. Specifically, we irradiate epitaxial B20-phase
FeGe films with 2.8 MeV Au$^{4+}$ ions, which creates a dispersion of
amorphized regions that may preferentially host antiskyrmions at densities
controlled by the irradiation fluence. To further tune the disorder landscape,
we conduct a systematic electron diffraction study with in-situ annealing,
demonstrating the ability to recrystallize controllable fractions of the
material at temperatures ranging from approximately 150$^{circ}$ C to
250$^{circ}$C. Finally, we describe the crystallization kinetics using the
Johnson-Mehl-Avrami-Kolmogorov model, finding that the growth of crystalline
grains is consistent with diffusion-controlled one-to-two dimensional growth
with a decreasing nucleation rate.
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