Influence of substrate on interfacial Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction in epitaxial Tm3Fe5O12 films

The interfacial Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (iDMI) promotes homochiral magnetic structures such as Neel-type domain walls (DWs) and skyrmions. iDMI as well as chiral magnetic structures have been demonstrated in metal/garnet heterostructures offering desirable properties for spintronic applications compared to their metallic counterparts. By measuring the motion of DWs as a function of current and in-plane magnetic field, we show that for 6.6 nm thick epitaxial thulium iron garnet films with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy grown on gallium garnet substrates, the iDMI and the DW width depend on the substrate but do not scale linearly with lattice mismatch strain. The largest iDMI was 0.007 mJ m-2, obtained for three substrates of different compositions. The total anisotropy, however, does increase linearly with lattice parameter, indicating a domi-nant magnetoelastic anisotropy contribution. The sensitivity of iDMI and anisotropy to substrate composition provides opportunities for engineering homochiral magnetic structures and their dynamics.