Thickness Dependence of Fe₃O₄/MgO Thin Film Properties: Density Functional Theory Investigation

Abstract

In this work, the thickness dependence of Fe₃O₄(111)/MgO thin films, were simulated using density-functional theory. From the results, even though the total DOS in bulk structure presents a half-metallic behavior, the DOS of all Fe₃O₄ (111) films demonstrates that they are metallic. The specific magnetization as a function of film thickness is found to satisfy the inverse power law. Indeed, the noncompensation of spin moments is also observed to be the main majority effect in the enhancement of giant magnetization. Moreover, the high spin polarization value is discovered in the compensation models and tends to reach −80% with increasing the thickness.

Keywords:

• Density functional theory
• Fe₃O₄/MgO thin films
• thickness dependence
• spin polarization

Acknowledgment

The Graduate School of Chiang Mai University, Development and Promotion of Science and Technology Talents Project (DPST), Department of Physics and Materials Science, and Center of Excellence in Materials Science, Faculty of Science, Chiang Mai University are acknowledged for the support.