Dresden 2014 – scientific programme
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MA: Fachverband Magnetismus
MA 45: Spin Structures at Surfaces and in thin films I (Skyrmions)
MA 45.9: Talk
Thursday, April 3, 2014, 17:15–17:30, BEY 118
MnGe grown as a thin film - a new aspirant in skyrmion research — •Josefin Engelke1, Dirk Menzel1, and Vadim Dyadkin2 — 1IPKM, TU Braunschweig, Mendelssohnstr. 3, 38106 Braunschweig, Germany — 2Swiss-Norwegian Beamlines at the ESRF, Grenoble, 38000, France
Since the discovery of skyrmions in MnSi, there has been a lot of research in the field of the magnetic B20 alloys. Especially the growth of thin films is of great interest, because the skyrmion phase is enlarged compared to bulk material [1,2]. While most of the compounds exhibit a very low ordering temperature, MnGe offers magnetic order at much higher temperatures, which brings it closer to application in future spintronic devices.
We have grown MnGe as a thin film on Si(111) substrates by MBE [3]. The films have been structually characterized by RHEED, AFM and XRD. These techniques give evidence that MnGe forms in the cubic B20 crystal structure as islands exhibiting a very smooth surface. A magnetic characterization reveals that the ordering temperature of MnGe thin films is slightly enhanced compared to bulk material. The properties of the helical magnetic structure obtained from magnetization and magnetoresistivity measurements are compared with films of the related compound MnSi. The much larger Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction in MnGe results in a higher rigidness of the spin helix.
References: [1] J. Engelke et al., J. Phys. Soc. Japn. 81, 124709 (2012). [2] M. N. Wilson et al., Phys. Rev. B 86, 144420 (2012). [3] J. Engelke et al., J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 25, 472201 (2013).