[NCNR/NIST] Investigating the Role of Magnetic Inhomogeneities and Interdiffusion in Compensated Gadolinium Iron Garnet

Thin film magnetic insulators provide an opportunity to realize magnetic non-volatile memories (i.e. spintronics) that consume less energy than traditional metallic based spintronics due to a lack of charge current. The ferrimagnetic iron garnet class of materials (M3Fe5O12) are of particular interest due to the desirable and highly tunable magnetic properties.Y3Fe5O12 (YIG) is the prototypical garnet and most widely studied, however, YIG has been widely reported to have growth issues due to interdiffusion, and further does not have a compensation temperature. Gd3Fe5O12 is a ferrimagnetic garnet that has a compensation temperature near room temperature, and we propose it may be less susceptible to interdiffusion with GGG substrates. We propose to use neutron reflectometry to probe the chemical and magnetic depth profile of GdIG thin films above and below its compensation temperature.