Research Projects

This project aims to fabricate epitaxial soft ferrite-normal metal (NM) heterostructure thin films with ultra-low damping and investigate their inverse spin Hall-effect (ISHE) properties using the ferromagnetic resonance driven spin pumping (FMR-SP) technique. The project is based on successfully growing epitaxial ferrite films and ascertaining magnetic anisotropy properties. Spin transport, an alternative solution to charge transport, holds potential for spintronics applications in generating, manipulating, and detecting spin currents. Isolators have proven promising materials for efficient spin current generation due to their absence of conduction electrons and no Joule heating effects. However, garnets and spinel ferrites have limitations such as high-temperature growth processes, high-cost GGG substrates, and relatively low-saturation magnetization. To address these issues, the project will synthesize MgAlxFe2-xO4 and Ni1-x ZnxFe2O4, grow epitaxial thin films on lattice-matched single-crystal MgGa2O4 and CoGa2O4 substrates using pulsed laser deposition techniques, and use state-of-the-art techniques such as XRD, SEM, TEM, AFM, MPMS-SQUID, and FMR-SP. The FMR-SP technique will be used to obtain the damping factor and tune it by varying the composition and thickness of the films. The project will also optimize ferrite-NM heterostructures by growing NM-layers like Pt, W, Ta, on top of ferrite films using sputtering techniques. FMR-SP measurements will be performed on ferrite-NM heterostructure thin films to investigate ISHE and obtain various parameters governing spin current properties. This work will not only allow for conference presentations and publication of high-impact journals but also provide new fundamental insight into spintronics Physics.