The role of the non-magnetic material in spin pumping and magnetization dynamics in NiFe and CoFeB multilayer systems

We present a study of the effective magnetization M-eff and the effective damping parameter alpha(eff) by means of ferromagnetic resonance spectroscopy on the ferromagnetic (FM) materials Ni81Fe19 (NiFe) and Co40Fe40B20 (CoFeB) in FM/Pt, FM/NM, and FM/NM/Pt systems with the non-magnetic (NM) materials Ru, Cr, Al, and MgO. Moreover, for NiFe layer systems, the influence of interface effects is studied by way of thickness dependent measurements of M-eff and alpha(eff). Additionally, spin pumping in NiFe/NM/Pt is investigated by means of inverse spin Hall effect (ISHE) measurements. We observe a large dependence of M-eff and alpha(eff) of the NiFe films on the adjacent NM layer. While Cr and Al do not induce a large change in the magnetic properties, Ru, Pt, and MgO affect M-eff and alpha(eff) in different degrees. In particular, NiFe/Ru and NiFe/Ru/Pt systems show a large perpendicular surface anisotropy and a significant enhancement of the damping. In contrast, the magnetic properties of CoFeB films do not have a large influence of the NM adjacent material and only CoFeB/Pt systems present an enhancement of alpha(eff). However, this enhancement is much more pronounced in NiFe/Pt. By the introduction of the NM spacer material, this enhancement is reduced. Furthermore, a difference in symmetry between NiFe/NM/Pt and NiFe/NM systems in the output voltage signal from the ISHE measurements reveals the presence of spin pumping into the Pt layer in all-metallic NiFe/NM/Pt and NiFe/Pt systems. (C) 2015 AIP Publishing LLC.