Strong impact of the eddy-current shielding on ferromagnetic resonance response of sub-skin-depth-thick conducting magnetic multilayers

Abstract

Exchange-coupled nonmagnetic (NM) and ferromagnetic (FM) conducting multilayers are crucial for microwave spintronic devices of the future. We demonstrate, experimentally and theoretically, that in broadband measurements of ferromagnetic resonance (FMR) 10-70 nm-thick permalloy (Py) layers are shielded from the dynamic magnetic field of the microstrip line by eddy currents circulating in the NM capping layers, which strongly diminishes the amplitude of magnetisation precession in the FM material. Our findings have direct implications for designing broadband FMR and measurements of spin current injection through interfaces realised by placing a conducting multilayer above a microwave microstrip line. We show that the eddy-current shielding is very strong at high microwave frequencies (30 GHz) even when the thickness of the NM capping layer is <5 nm, which is well below the microwave skin depth for Au, Cu, Ta, Pd, Pt and other NM metals technologically important for spintronics.