Controlling Magneto‐Ionics by Defect Engineering Through Light Ion Implantation
Zheng Ma, Sofia Martins, Zhengwei Tan, Song Chen, E. Monteblanco, Maciej Oskar Liedke, Maik Butterling, Ahmed G. Attallah, Eric Hirschmann, A. Wagner, Alberto Quintana, Eva Pellicer, D. Ravelosona, Jordi Sort, Enric Menéndez
Abstract
Abstract Magneto‐ionics relies on the voltage‐driven transport of ions to modify magnetic properties. As a diffusion‐controlled mechanism, defects play a central role in determining ion motion and, hence, magneto‐ionic response. Here, the potential of ion implantation is exploited to engineer depth‐resolved defect type and density with the aim to control the magneto‐ionic behavior of Co 3 O 4 thin films. It is demonstrated that through a single implantation process of light ions (He + ) at 5 keV, the magneto‐ionic response of a nanostructured 50 nm thick Co 3 O 4 film, in terms of rate and amount of induced magnetization, at short‐, mid‐, and long‐term voltage actuation, can be controlled by varying the generated collisional damage through the ion fluence. These results constitute a proof‐of‐principle that paves the way to further use ion implantation (tuning the ion nature, energy, fluence, target temperature, or using multiple implantations) to enhance performance in magneto‐ionic systems, with implications in ionic‐based devices.