MBE-Sputtering-system for antiferromagnetic spintronic materials

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Many spintronic effects, such as gaint and tunnel magnetoresistance (GMR, TMR) used in novel magnetic devices such as magnetic random access memories (RAMs) or magnetic hard disks, have been discovered in thin film systems precisely designed to have well-defined sharp interfaces and high crystalline quality using advanced film deposition techniques. The realization of such epitaxial thin films from complex material systems has often led to breathtaking discoveries of spintronic effects that allow very fast operation with only low power consumption. As a result, preparation techniques involving state-of-the-art deposition of thin films from a variety of material systems, including (semi)metals, oxide compounds, semiconductors, and superconductors, have become the focus of the spintronics research. In recent years, there has been a breakthrough in spintronics research that has revealed the possibility of using antiferromagnets (AFs) instead of ferromagnets to enable far more powerful spintronic functions. In previous magnetic devices, AFs were used only as auxiliary components because the intrinsic properties of AFs, such as negligible magnetic magnetization, do not allow manipulation of the antiferromagnetic order with moderate magnetic fields. However, it has been shown that the intrinsic symmetry properties of AFs allow extremely fast manipulation of the magnetic order and can lead to novel spintronic effects. In particular, the combined symmetries of crystal and magnetic lattices play an essential role in enabling phenomena such as spin-polarized bands in AFs without net-magnetization, the anomalous and spin Hall effects, and also G(T)MR effects. Recently, ultrafast electrical switching of antiferromagnetic order and detection of apparently identical inverted antiferromagnetic states have been demonstrated in epitaxial thin films with specific crystal and magnetic lattice symmetries. The realization of epitaxial thin films is therefore an essential element in the research of novel spin phenomena in AFs. To realize epitaxial thin films of AFs, we apply for a cluster consisting of multitarget sputtering and molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) systems. In order to cover a wide range of material systems, we aim to realize a growth facility comprising a UHV sputtering system with 8 targets, a chamber for oxides and an MBE system equipped with multiple effusion cells and an e-beam evaporator connected by a common transfer tube that allows seamless sample exchange between the different chambers within ultra-high vacuum conditions.