Flexible antiferromagnetic FeRh tapes as memory elements

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates flexible FeRh tapes that undergo a sharp magnetic phase transition near 90°C, maintaining their properties under bending and enabling data storage via anisotropic magnetoresistance.

Contribution

It introduces a method to grow flexible FeRh films on metallic substrates with preserved magnetic properties suitable for large-scale spintronic memory applications.

Findings

FeRh tapes exhibit a sharp antiferromagnetic to ferromagnetic transition at 90°C.

Magnetic properties are maintained under bending with a radius of 300 mm.

Anisotropic magnetoresistance of up to 0.05% enables data writing and reading.

Abstract

The antiferromagnetic to ferromagnetic transition occurring above room temperature in FeRh is attracting interest for applications in spintronics, with perspectives for robust and untraceable data storage. Here, we show that FeRh films can be grown on a flexible metallic substrate (tape shaped), coated with a textured rock-salt MgO layer, suitable for large scale applications. The FeRh tape displays a sharp antiferromagnetic to ferromagnetic transition at about 90 oC. Its magnetic properties are preserved by bending (radii of 300 mm), and their anisotropic magnetoresistance (up to 0.05 %) is used to illustrate data writing/reading capability.