title: Interfacial magnetic anisotropy from a 3-dimensional Rashba substrate.
abstract: We study the magnetic anisotropy which arises at the interface between a thin film ferromagnet and a 3-d Rashba material. We use a tight-binding model to describe the bilayer, and the 3-d Rashba material characterized by the spin-orbit strengthαand the direction of broken bulk inversion symmetryn̂. We find an in-plane uniaxial anisotropy in theẑ × n̂direction, whereẑis the interface normal. For realistic values ofα, the uniaxial anisotropy is of a similar order of magnitude as the bulk magnetocrystalline anisotropy. Evaluating the uniaxial anisotropy for a simplified model in 1-d shows that for small band filling, the in-plane easy axis anisotropy scales asα4and results from a twisted exchange interaction between the spins in the 3-d Rashba material and the ferromagnet. For a ferroelectric 3-d Rashba material,n̂can be controlled with an electric field, and we propose that the interfacial magnetic anisotropy could provide a mechanism for electrical control of the magnetic orientation.
authors.affiliation: Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD 20899, USA; Maryland NanoCenter, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA.
authors.forename: Junwen
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD 20899, USA.
authors.forename: Paul M
authors.initials: PM
authors.lastname: Haney