Bismuth Doping Enhanced Tunability of Strain-Controlled Magnetic Anisotropy in Epitaxial Y3Fe5O12(111) Films

Y3Fe5O12 (YIG) and BiY2Fe5O12 (Bi:YIG) films were epitaxially grown on a series of (111)-oriented garnet substrates using pulsed laser deposition. Structural and ferromagnetic resonance characterizations demonstrated the high epitaxial quality, extremely low magnetic loss and coherent strain state in these films. Using these epitaxial films as model systems, we systematically investigated the evolution of magnetic anisotropy (MA) with epitaxial strain and chemical doping. For both the YIG and Bi:YIG films, the compressive strain tends to align the magnetic moment in the film plane while the tensile strain can compete with the demagnetization effect and stabilize perpendicular MA. We found that the strain-induced lattice elongation/compression along the out-of-plane [111] axis is the key parameter that determines the MA. More importantly, the strain-induced tunability of MA can be enhanced significantly by Bi doping; meanwhile, the ultralow damping feature persists. We clarified that the cooperation between strain and chemical doping could realize an effective control of MA in garnet-type ferrites, which is essential for spintronic applications.