Annealing-controlled spin reorientation in thulium iron garnet thin films

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Spin-reorientation transition (SRT) is a magnetic phase crossover in which the preferred orientation of the magnetic moments, defined by the easy axis or easy plane, changes due to competing energies. This tunable transition is crucial for controlling magnetic anisotropy, enabling spin-orientation manipulation for magnetic data storage and efficient magnetic switching in spintronic devices. In this work, we demonstrate annealing-controlled SRT in thulium iron garnet (TmIG) films grown on (111)-oriented gadolinium gallium garnet (GGG). Systematic variation of the post-growth annealing temperature from 600 to 900 °C drives the magnetic anisotropy from an in-plane to an out-of-plane-favoured regime, with the total effective anisotropy energy density, 𝐾 e f f , changing from − 0 . 7 1 ± 0 . 1 2 to + 2 . 3 1 ± 0 . 2 5 kJ m −3 . Temperature-dependent magnetometry reveals that the SRT shifts toward ambient conditions with increasing annealing temperature, consistent with lattice expansion in the in-plane direction and compression along the out-of-plane axis. In particular, controlling the SRT in TmIG films is promising for dynamically tuning spin-wave propagation, with potential implications for magnonic information transport.