Slater-Pauling behavior of interfacial magnetic properties of 3d transition metal alloy/Pt structures

Abstract

Ferromagnet (FM)/heavy metal (HM) bilayers are core structures for current-induced magnetization switching and chiral magnetic structure generation. Static and dynamic properties of the FM moment depend substantially on interfacial perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (iPMA) and interfacial Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (iDMI). Therefore, it is of crucial importance to control iPMA and iDMI, and to understand their underlying physics. Here we experimentally show that both iPMA and iDMI exhibit similar Slater-Pauling-like dependence on the FM variation as the saturation magnetization (MS) does. We measure MS, iPMA, and iDMI of the FM/HM bilayers with HM fixed to Pt and FM varied from Mn (electron number Z=25) to Ni (Z=28), including their alloys for fractional Z. Our result indicates that the density of states structure important for the Slater-Pauling dependence is crucial also for iPMA and iDMI. This provides a useful method to engineer chiral magnetic textures. © 2022 American Physical Society.