Journal of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials 477 (2019) 62–67

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Journal of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials

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Research articles

Spin Hall magnetoresistance in Co2MnSn/IrMn/Pt heterostructures T

⁎
Xiufeng Huang, Zhiwen Dai, Dongchao Yang, Lizhi Yi, Hong-Guang Piao, Liqing Pan
Research Institute for Magnetoelectronics & Weak Magnetic-field Detection, College of Science, China Three Gorges of University, Yichang 443002, China

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Magnetic transport properties in Co2MnSn/IrMn/Pt trilayer structures have been investigated. Spin Hall mag-
Spin Hall effects netoresistance (SMR) enhancement in the trilayer structures has been observed, under the premise of exclusion
Spin Hall magnetoresistances current shunting effect. The experimental analysis indicates that the SMR enhancement may be closely related to
Spin-orbit interaction the spin current enhancement reflected from the Co2MnSn/IrMn interface. Anomalous Hall resistance (AHR)
Spin flop coupling
study shows that its variation is quite similar to the SMR, suggesting that the SMR enhancement may also be
closely related to spin-orbit coupled (SOC) scattering at the interface due to the coupling between IrMn and
Co2MnSn layer. Temperature influences the SMR significantly in the trilayer structures at low IrMn thicknesses,
which the IrMn has more ferromagnetic or ferrimagnetic orders than antiferromagnetic order. It indicates that
the physical mechanism of the influencing of temperature on SMR of FM/AFI(AFM)/Pt trilayer structures need to
be further investigated. The SMR changes its sign from positive to negative at temperatures lower than 50 K,
revealing that spin-flop coupling between IrMn and Co2MnSn could happen at the interface.

1. Introduction
Spin Hall magnetoresistance (SMR) are the collective effects of spin
Hall effects (SHE) and inverse spin Hall effects (ISHE). The generation,
manipulation and detection of spin current can be realized simulta-
neously [1–3]. Therefore, the SMR is a convenient means for in-
vestigating the spin current related phenomena such as SHE [4,5], ISHE
[6,7], spin-orbit torques (SOT) [8,9], spin mixing conductance [10–12],
and so on. The SMR phenomenon was first observed in YIG/Pt and
other ferromagnetic insulator (FI)/heavy metal (HM) structures. Ac-
cording to SMR theory [1–3,13–15], the spin current Js is generated by
SHE in HM layer contacted with a FM layer. It can be either reflected
(M//σ, M is the magnetization direction and σ is the spin polarization
direction) or absorbed (M ⊥ σ) at the FMI/HM interface. And then the
reflected spin current would convert into an additional charge current
due to the ISHE.
SMR not only exists in FI/HM bilayer structures but also in ferro-
magnetic metallic FM/HM structures, such as W/CoFeB [16,17], Pt/Co
[18,19], Co2FeSi/Pt [20] and so on. The physics is more complex in
FM/HM compared to it in FI/HM, because charge current and spin
current flowing through FM layer would influence the SMR and lead to
anisotropic magnetoresistance (AMR) and spin current related phe-
nomena.
Many factors affect the SMR behavior, the spin Hall angle of HM,
the structure and magnetism of the ferromagnetic (FM) layer, and the
property of the FM/HM interface [1,3]. The spin Hall angle of the HM
plays the dominant role in the SMR behavior. The magnetic structure of
the FM layer also affects the SMR behavior significantly. More recently,
several studies on the SMR have focus on the FI/antiferromagnetic in-
sulator (AFI)/HM heterostructures such as YIG/NiO/Pt and YIG/CrO/Pt
[21,22], and NiO/Pt [23,24]. The insertion of the AFI enhances the spin
mixing conductance due to magnon and spin fluctuation in the AFI
layer. Moreover, a spin flip reflection at the AFI/HM interface happens
at low temperature due to that the local moments in the AFI is per-
pendicular to applied field below the Neel temperature. However, spin
current enhancement have not been found in other FM/AFM/HM het-
erostructures, where the AFM is an antiferromagnetic metal.
In this work, we have investigated the SMR and AHR in Co2MnSn/
IrMn/Pt trilayer structures as a function of the IrMn thickness at room
temperature. We have also measured the temperature dependence of
the SMR in the trilayer structures at low IrMn thickness. We observed
SMR enhancement at the trilayer structures with IrMn thickness in-
creasing from 0.5 to 1 nm, which the IrMn has more ferromagnetic or
ferrimagnetic orders than antiferromagnetic order. We also found ne-
gative SMR in the trilayer structures, indicating that spin-flop coupling
could happen between IrMn and Co2MnSn with temperature lower than
50 K.

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: lpan@ctgu.edu.cn (L. Pan).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmmm.2019.01.044
Received 5 July 2018; Received in revised form 3 January 2019; Accepted 11 January 2019
Available online 14 January 2019
0304-8853/ © 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
X. Huang et al.
2. Experiment details
Two series of samples from bottom to top, IrMn(tIrMn)/Pt(4) and
Co2MnSn(5)/IrMn(tIrMn)/Pt(4) (all the numbers in the parentheses are
thickness in nanometers), were deposited by DC magnetron sputtering
on single crystal MgO(0 0 1) substrates in a 0.3 Pa argon atmosphere at
room temperature. The atomic composition of the IrMn layer is
Ir0.25Mn0.75. The deposited rates of Co2MnSn, IrMn and Pt are 0.35,
0.4, and 0.255 nm/s respectively. The device structures of the two
series were schematically shown in Fig. 1(a). The IrMn thickness tIrMn
changes from 0 to 10 nm to investigate the effect of IrMn layer on the
magneto-transport properties for the two series of samples. Crystal
structure of an additional 200 nm Co2MnSn single layer fabricated on
the single crystal MgO(0 0 1) was characterized by X-ray diffraction
(XRD). Magnetism and magnetic transport properties of all samples
were measured on Vibrating Sample Magnetometer (Versalab:
Quantum Design). All samples were patterned into Hall bar shape for
magneto-transport measurements as illustrated in Fig. 1(b). The width
of the Hall bar is 100 μm. The charge current was along the x direction
and the longitudinal voltage was obtained by two side bars which are
2 mm apart from each other. The current density is 2.5 × 104 A/cm2.
The Hall resistance was measured on a transversal electrode and its
length is 5 mm.
3. Results and discussion
The XRD result of the Co2MnSn single layer is shown in Fig. 1(c). It
can be seen that Co2MnSn exhibit a strong (0 0 2) peak at 31.6° and a
relatively weaker peak at 45.3° corresponding to (0 2 2) peak. There are
also several quite weak peaks which correspond to (1 1 1), (2 2 2),
(0 2 4) and (4 2 2) respectively. The result reveals that the Co2MnSn
film is polycrystalline L21 cubic structure [25].
Fig. 1(d) shows the IrMn thickness tIrMn dependence of the re-
sistances and the saturated magnetizations per square centimeters in
the Co2MnSn(5)/IrMn(tIrMn)/Pt(4) trilayer structures. The IrMn thick-
ness changes from 0 to 8 nm. The resistance does not decrease mono-
tonous with increasing the deposited thickness. In contrast, it increases
with the deposited thickness increasing from 0.5 to 1 nm and then de-
creases with the thickness further increasing. We have also prepared a
single 5 nm Co2MnSn layer on substrate to get the resistivity. The re-
sistance of this 5 nm Co2MnSn film is about 6.4 × 105 Ω, which have
been shown in the Fig. S1 in Ref. [26]. Therefore, the resistivity of the
5 nm Co2MnSn layer is about 160 μΩ.m. Considering a simple parallel
resistor model, the resistance of Co2MnSn(5)/Pt(4) bilayer structure is
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Journal of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials 477 (2019) 62–67
Fig. 1. (a) Schematic of (i) IrMn/Pt bilayer structure
and (ii) Co2MnSn/IrMn/Pt trilayer structures. (b)
Schematic of the longitudinal and transversal mag-
netoresistance measurement setup. (c) XRD pattern
for a 200 nm Co2MnSn single layer film. (d) IrMn
thickness dependence of the saturated magnetization
per square of centimeters and the resistances in the
Co2MnSn(5)/IrMn(tIrMn)/Pt(4) trilayer structures.
The inset figure in (d) is the magnetic hysteresis loops
in the trilayer structures with different IrMn thick-
ness.
about 1800 Ω. So the resistivity of 4 nm Pt layer is 0.45 μΩm. The re-
sistivity of 2 nm IrMn layer can also be calculated to be 6.55 μΩ.m. The
resistivity of IrMn layer is about one magnitude larger than the Pt layer
at several nanometers. The result indicates that the IrMn is discrete
granular when the deposited thickness is lower than 2 nm. The IrMn
could form continuous and layered film structure when the deposited
thickness increases to 2 nm. The saturated magnetization per square
centimeters in the trilayer structures increases dramatically with IrMn
thickness decreasing from 4 nm to 1.5 nm, which can be shown in
Fig. 1(d). With the thickness further decreasing, the saturated magne-
tization varies quite gentle. This result reveals that large saturated
magnetization exists in the IrMn with the thickness lower than 1.5 nm.
It means that the discrete granular IrMn layer are ferromagnetic or
ferrimagnetic orders more than antiferromagnetic order at this quite
low thickness. The inset figure is the field dependence of the saturated
magnetic moment per square centimeters with different IrMn thickness.
Temperature dependence of the magnetic moment of thin IrMn layer
with different fields indicate that, ferromagnetic or ferrimagnetic orders
have not disappeared even if the thickness increases to 10 nm. The
result is shown in supplementary material.
Field dependent magnetoresistances (MR) were first performed on
IrMn(tIrMn)/Pt(4) bilayer structures. Fig. 2(a) shows the longitudinal
resistances of IrMn(2)/Pt(4) structure with the field along the x, y, and
z directions. The SMR longitudinal resistivity change can be formulated
as: ρL = ρ0 − Δρsmy2, and the conventional longitudinal AMR can be
formulated as: ρL = ρ⊥ − ΔρAmx2 [1–3]. It can be seen that the re-
sistances nearly do not change when the field changes from x direction
to z direction. It means that the anisotropic magnetoresistance (AMR) is
negligible. As the conventional AMR ratio is calculated by (RHx − RHz)/
R0, where the RHx and RHz represents the longitudinal resistances when
the magnetization is along the x and z directions respectively [2,3]. R0
is the resistance with the no field. Importantly, the resistance does not
change with increasing field along the y direction. This is the typical
SMR behavior for AFM/HM structures as the antiferromagnetic mo-
ments in the y direction is very stable [27,28]. And this particular SMR
behavior exists in the IrMn(t)/Pt(4) structures when the IrMn thickness
is larger than 2 nm which shows in Fig. 2(b). Fig. 2(c) shows the
magnitude of the SMR varied with the thickness of the IrMn layer. The
SMR ratio is calculated by (RHz-RHy)/R0, where the RHy represent the
longitudinal resistances when the magnetization is along the y direc-
tion. Obviously, the SMR ratio decreases with increasing the IrMn layer
thickness when the tIrMn is larger than 2 nm. The deviated variation at
the tIrMn below 2 nm may be due to the deposited roughness of the IrMn
layer. This result indicates that the SMR behavior of the IrMn/Pt
X. Huang et al.
Fig. 2. (a) and (b) The magnetic field dependence of the longitudinal resistance for the IrMn(tIrMn)/Pt(4) bilayer structures with 2 and 10 nm thickness IrMn layer. (c)
IrMn thickness dependence of measured SMR ratio ΔRSMR/R0 for the IrMn(tIrMn)/Pt(4) bilayer structures. The ΔRSMR = RHz − RHy.
structure consists is similar to the ones of AFM/HM structure such as
the FeMn/Pt and Cr2O3/Pt structures [27,28].
In order to investigate the effect of inserting IrMn layer on the SMR
behavior for Co2MnSn/Pt structure, field dependent longitudinal re-
sistances of Co2MnSn(5)/IrMn(tIrMn)/Pt(4) trilayer structures were
measured. The tIrMn changed from 0 to 8 nm in the trilayer structures.
Fig. 3(a)–(c) shows the typical field dependent MR of the samples. From
Fig. 3(a) it can be seen that the SMR reaches saturation rapidly. This
field dependent variation is attributed to that the low magnetic hys-
teresis of the Co2MnSn layer. It can be calculated that the SMR ratio of
the Co2MnSn(5)/Pt(4) bilayers is 1.31 × 10−3. This large SMR ratio of
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Journal of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials 477 (2019) 62–67
the Co2MnSn(5)/Pt(4) bilayers may be attributed to the high spin po-
larization in half-metallic Co2MnSn layer [29,30]. Fig. 3(b) shows the
MR of Co2MnSn(5)/IrMn(0.5)/Pt(4) trilayer structure. The AMR in
Co2MnSn(5)/Pt(4) bilayer structure is only 2 × 10−4 which is about
15% of its SMR ratio. It almost disappears when 0.5 nm thick IrMn layer
was inserted into the interface. Furthermore, the AMR almost dis-
appears in all the Co2MnSn(5)/IrMn(tIrMn)/Pt(4) samples with the tIrMn
ranging from 0.5 to 8 nm.
The SMR ratio of the Co2MnSn(5)/IrMn(0.5)/Pt(4) trilayer structure
in Fig. 3(b) is 3.1 × 10−4, much lower than it in the Co2MnSn(5)/Pt(4)
bilayer structure. This is due to current shunting effect (CSE) in IrMn
Fig. 3. (a)–(c) The magnetic field dependence of the
longitudinal resistances for the Co2MnSn(5)/IrMn
(tIrMn)/Pt(4) trilayer structures with the tIrMn = 0,
0.5, and 8 nm. (d) Comparison between the measured
SMR ratio ΔRSMR/R0 and the calculated intrinsic SMR
ratio (SMRintr) which the current shunting effect has
been removed for the Co2MnSn(5)/IrMn(tIrMn)/Pt(4)
trilayer structures with different IrMn thicknesses.
The inset figure is comparison between the SMR ra-
tios of the Co2MnSn(5)/IrMn(tIrMn)/Pt(4) trilayers
and IrMn(tIrMn)/Pt(4) bilayers which the current
shunting effect have been removed.
X. Huang et al.
Fig. 4. IrMn thickness dependence of the anomalous Hall resistance RAHR for
the Co2MnSn(5)/IrMn(tIrMn)/Pt(4) trilayer structures. The inset figure is the
magnetic field dependence of the transversal resistance for the IrMn(2)/Pt(4)
bilayer structure.
layer as the resistivity of IrMn layer is about one order of magnitude
larger than that of the Pt layer at several nanometers metioned above.
Parts of charge currents may flow into the IrMn layer and spin currents
get into this IrMn metal layer and scatter strongly with the magnetic
moments, then decrease the SMR ratio significantly.
Fig. 3(c) gives the field dependent MR curves of the trilayer struc-
ture with the thickness tIrMn reaches 8 nm. The SMR has a high sa-
turation field. It could not saturate at the field of 30kOe. This may be
due to that the magnetic moment in the Co2MnSn layer is strongly in-
fluenced by the IrMn layer, which the latter has quite a part of anti-
ferromagnetic structure in it. Latest studies of SMR on YIG/AFI NiO/Pt
[21,22] and YIG/AFM IrMn/Pt [31] indicate that the SMR would dis-
appear when the thickness of the AFM NiO or IrMn spacer layer is no
more than 5 nm. It means that spins could only penetrate the AFM NiO
or IrMn spacer layer with thickness no more than 5 nm and then reflect
back to the Pt layer. However, the SMR still exists even the thickness of
the IrMn layer increases to 8 nm in the Co2MnSn(5)/IrMn(tIrMn)/Pt(4)
trilayer structure. The SMR ratio is 1.75 × 10−5 in IrMn(8)/Pt(4) bi-
layer structure and 2.75 × 10−5 in Co2MnSn(5)/IrMn(8)/Pt(4) trilayer
structure. It indicates that spins could penetrate the IrMn spacer layer
with thickness up to 8 nm and then reflect back to the Pt layer from the
IrMn/Co2MnSn interface. This result has also been shown in Fig. 3(c)
that the resistance decreases with increasing field along the y direction.
If spins could not be able to penetrate the 8 nm thick IrMn layer, the MR
would only come from the IrMn/Pt interface which the resistance
should not change with the applied field in IrMn layer along y direction.
The intrinsic spin current induced SMR ratio in the Co2MnSn(5)/
IrMn(tIrMn)/Pt(4) trilayer structures should be weakened by current
shunting effect in the IrMn layer due to its low resistivity. Considering
the simple parallel resistor model, the intrinsic SMR ratio can be de-
scribed as [1,32] SMRintr = (1 + RPt/RIrMn)ΔRSMR/R0. The ΔRSMR/R0 is
the measured SMR ratio with ΔRSMR/R0 = RHz − RHy. Fig. 3(d) shows
the comparison of the values between the measured SMR ratios and the
intrinsic SMR ratios with IrMn thickness increasing which the current
shunting effect have been removed. The variation trend of the SMRintr is
the same to the measured ΔRSMR/R0. The result means that the spin
current induced intrinsic SMR ratio indeed enhances with the IrMn
thickness increases from 0.5 to 1 nm. The inset figure is the result of the
IrMn thickness dependent of the intrinsic SMR ratio of the IrMn(tIrMn)/
Pt(4) bilayer structures calculated from the measured ΔRSMR/R0 in
Fig. 2(c). It can be deduced that the enhanced SMR ratio with the IrMn
thickness from 0.5 to 1 nm comes from the IrMn/Co2MnSn interface
instead of the IrMn/Pt interface. Because the increment of the intrinsic
SMR ratio in the IrMn(t)/Pt(4) bilayer structures is much lower than it
in the Co2MnSn(5)/IrMn(tIrMn)/Pt(4) trilayer structures. The reasons
for the SMR enhancement may be two. The one is interface roughness of
the ultrathin IrMn layer induced enhancement [7,32,33]. The other is
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Journal of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials 477 (2019) 62–67
the spin current reflected from the IrMn/Co2MnSn interface enhancing
[27,28]. In order to verify which one is true, the SMR ratio of Co2MnSn
(5)/Ni2MnGa(tNi2MnGa)/Pt(4) trilayer structures have also been mea-
sured. The results can be seen in Figs. S3 and S4 in Ref. [26]. It can be
seen that the magnetic and magnetic transport properties of the
Ni2MnGa at lower thickness is quite similar to the IrMn. Fig. S3 shows
that the Ni2MnGa thickness dependent resistance does not decrease
monotonically at the thickness lower than 2 nm. It indicates that the
deposited Ni2MnGa is rough granular too. The saturated magnetic
moment decreases drastically around 2 nm, which is also the same as
the IrMn. It also indicates that antiferromagnetic order increases with
thickness increasing. Fig. S4 shows the SMR behavior of the Ni2MnGa
(tNi2MnGa)/Pt(4) bilayer structures which is also quite similar to the
SMR behavior of the IrMn(tIrMn)/Pt(4) bilayer structures. In spite of so
many similarities between the Ni2MnGa and IrMn at low thickness, the
thickness dependent variation of the SMR ratio of the Co2MnSn(5)/
Ni2MnGa(tNi2MnGa)/Pt(4) trilayer structures is quite different from the
SMR variation of the Co2MnSn(5)/IrMn(tIrMn)/Pt(4) trilayer structures.
With the tNi2MnGa increasing, the SMR ratio in the former decreases
monotonically. No SMR enhancement happens with thickness in-
creasing. So it can be deduced that the SMR enhancement in the
Co2MnSn(5)/IrMn(tIrMn)/Pt(4) trilayer structures does not come from
the interfacial roughness. It is attributed to the reflected spin current
enhancement from the IrMn/Co2MnSn interface. This spin current en-
hancement in the Co2MnSn(5)/IrMn(tIrMn)/Pt(4) trilayer structures is
quite weak compared to it in the YIG/AFI (NiO, CoO)/Pt trilayer
structures [21,22], which may be due to the current shunting effect. It is
worth noting that the IrMn thickness that spin current enhancement
happening is lower than 2 nm, at which the ferromagnetic or ferri-
magnetic orders are more than antiferromagnetic order in the IrMn
layer [21,28].
In order to further investigate what happens at the interface when
the IrMn thickness increases. The anomalous Hall resistances RAHR of
Co2MnSn(5)/IrMn(tIrMn)/Pt(4) trilayer structures with tIrMn increases
from 0 to 8 nm have been measured. Fig. 4 shows the thickness de-
pendence of the RAHR, which ordinary Hall resistances have been re-
moved. The RAHE with tIrMn larger than 2 nm is zero, which means that
only ordinary Hall resistances exist in these trilayer structures. More-
over, the tIrMn dependent variation of the RAHE is quite similar to the
tIrMn dependent variation of the SMR ratio in the trilayer structures with
thickness lower than 2 nm.
The RAHE in the Co2MnSn(5)/Pt(4) bilayer structure mainly origi-
nates from Co2MnSn layer itself and magnetic proximity effect (MPE) in
Pt layer [1,2]. However, the non-monotonically decreased RAHE in
Co2MnSn(5)/IrMn(tIrMn)/Pt(4) trilayer structures with tIrMn increasing
indicates that MPE induced AHE in Pt layer is negligible in the trilayer
structures. Moreover, if the RAHE in Co2MnSn layer plays the dominant
role, it would not disappear with IrMn thickness increasing. So RAHE in
Co2MnSn layer in the Co2MnSn(5)/IrMn(tIrMn)/Pt(4) trilayer structures
should be negligible. As analyzed above, the IrMn continuous layered
structure can be formed when the deposited IrMn thickness increases to
2 nm. This is due to the roughness and surface effect. In addition, there
is only ordinary Hall resistance in the IrMn(tIrMn)/Pt bilayer structure
which has been shown in the inset of Fig. 4. These results show that
there is no RAHE once the IrMn/Pt interface is completely formed in the
trilayer structures. Two reasons may explain the non-monotonically
variation of the RAHR with the IrMn thickness lower than 2 nm. One
may be the double spin-Hall mechanism which is proportional to the
square of spin Hall angle. This mechanism is of second order in the SOC
scattering with the existence of discrete granular IrMn. The other may
be the so called nonlocal anomalous Hall effect which is proportional
linearly to the spin Hall angle [34]. This mechanism is also closely
related to SOC scattering.
Furthermore, the tIrMn dependent variation trend of this RAHE is
quite similar to the tIrMn dependent variation trend of the SMR ratio in
the trilayer structures with IrMn thickness lower than 2 nm. So we can
X. Huang et al.
Fig. 5. (a) Temperature dependence of the magnetoresistances (MR: (RH − R0)/R0) for Co2MnSn(5)/IrMn(2)/Pt(4) trilayer structure at α = 0° and 90° with field of
H = 30kOe. (b) Temperature dependence of the SMR ratio for the Co2MnSn(5)/IrMn(tIrMn)/Pt(4) structures with the tIrMn = 0, 1 and 2 nm.
infer that the spin current enhancement reflected from the IrMn/
Co2MnSn interface may be closely related to the SOC scattering at the
interface which due to the existence of discrete granular IrMn film. Fig.
S6 in Ref. [26] shows that there is no non-monotonically variation of
RAHE with Ni2MnGa thickness in the Co2MnSn(5)/Ni2MnGa(tNi2MnGa)/
Pt(4) trilayer structures, even if the Ni2MnGa is also rough and granular
with thickness lower than 2 nm. This result indicates that the roughness
is not the reason which RAHE exists. Considering the differences of the
SMR and RAHE between Co2MnSn(5)/IrMn(tIrMn)/Pt(4) and Co2MnSn
(5)/Ni2MnGa(tNi2MnGa)/Pt(4) trilayer structures, one may deduce that
IrMn coupling with Co2MnSn layer maybe the reason for spin current
enhancement and the RAHE existing [21,22]. On the contrary, there is
no coupling effect between Ni2MnGa and Co2MnSn layer. Then there is
no spin current enhancement and RAHE existing in the latter.
Temperature dependence of the SMR ratios in the Co2MnSn(5)/
IrMn(tIrMn)/Pt(4) trilayer structures with the IrMn thickness of 1 and
2 nm have also been measured. Fig. 5(a) shows the temperature de-
pendence of the MR in the Co2MnSn(5)/IrMn(2)/Pt(4) trilayer structure
with the field along the z and y directions respectively. It shows ob-
viously that temperature has a strong influence on the MR when the
field is along z direction. It changes its sign around 50 K. Fig. 5(b) shows
the comparison between the temperature dependence of the SMR ratios
in the Co2MnSn(5)/IrMn(tIrMn)/Pt(4) trilayer structures with the IrMn
thickness of 0, 1 and 2 nm respectively. It can be seen that the tem-
perature has slight influence on the SMR behavior in the Co2MnSn(5)/
Pt(4) bilayer structure. In contrast, the temperature influences the SMR
significantly in the Co2MnSn(5)/IrMn(tIrMn)/Pt(4) trilayer structures
with the IrMn thickness of 1 and 2 nm. Moreover, the SMR ratio in the
trilayer structure with 2 nm thickness IrMn approaches zero when the
temperature is near 50 K. It can deduce that the SMR would become
negative with the temperature lower than 50 K. And this critical tem-
perature decreases with the IrMn thickness decreasing to 1 nm in the
trilayer structure. According to theoretical and experimental studies on
SMR of YIG/AFI/Pt structures [21,22], this strong temperature depen-
dent SMR in the Co2MnSn(5)/IrMn(tIrMn)/Pt(4) trilayer structures is
attributed to spin mixing conductance at the interface, which varies
strongly with T on the premise of the existence of the ultrathin AFI
layer. In addition, this temperature dependent spin mixing conductance
is due to AF magnons and spin fluctuation mediated spin current
transportation. Our results show that the inserted metallic IrMn with
thickness lower than 2 nm has more ferromagnetic or ferrimagnetic
orders than antiferromagnetic order, which temperature could influ-
ence the SMR significantly in the Co2MnSn(5)/IrMn(tIrMn)/Pt(4) tri-
layer structures. Therefore, the physical mechanism of the influencing
of temperature on the SMR of the FM/AFI(AFM)/Pt trilayer structures
need to be further investigated. Recent experimental study confirms
that [35] the negative SMR at low temperature is attributed to spin-flop
coupling between AFI and FM, which resulting in spin axis of the AFI
perpendicular to FM. Comparing to YIG/NiO(t)/Pt trilayer structure,
the critical temperature that SMR changes its sign from positive to
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Journal of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials 477 (2019) 62–67
negative in the Co2MnSn(5)/IrMn(tIrMn)/Pt(4) trilayer structure, is
much lower at the same thickness of the inserted AF layer.
4. Conclusions
In summary, magnetic transport properties in Co2MnSn/IrMn/Pt
trilayer structures have been investigated. Spins could penetrate the
IrMn spacer layer with its thickness up to 8 nm and then reflect back to
the Pt layer from the IrMn/Co2MnSn interface. Spin current reflected
from the IrMn/Co2MnSn interface enhances when the IrMn thickness
increases from 0.5 to 1 nm, which charge current shunting effect has
been removed. This spin current induced intrinsic SMR enhancement
happens when the IrMn is less than 2 nm, and meanwhile the IrMn has
more ferromagnetic or ferrimagnetic orders than antiferromagnetic
order at this time. AHR investigation indicates that this spin current
enhancement may be closely related to the SOC scattering at the in-
terface due to the coupling between IrMn and Co2MnSn layer.
Temperature influences the SMR significantly in the trilayer structures
at low IrMn thicknesses, which the IrMn has more ferromagnetic or
ferrimagnetic orders than antiferromagnetic orders. It indicates that the
physical mechanism of the influencing of temperature on SMR in FM/
AFI(AFM)/Pt trilayer structures need to be further investigated. The
SMR changes its sign from positive to negative at temperature lower
than 50 K, revealing that spin-flop coupling between IrMn and
Co2MnSn happens. It results in spin axis of the IrMn perpendicular to
Co2MnSn layer. This critical temperature is much lower than it in YIG/
AFI NiO/Pt structures at the same interfacial AF thickness.
In summary, SMR and AHR in Co2MnSn/IrMn/Pt trilayer structures
have been investigated. The SMR results show that SMR enhancement
in the trilayer structures has been observed, under the premise of ex-
clusion current shunting effect. Moreover, the SMR enhancement hap-
pens with the IrMn thickness lower than 2 nm, which the IrMn has more
ferromagnetic and ferrimagnetic orders than antiferromagnetic orders
at this low thickness range. The experimental analysis indicates that the
SMR enhancement may be closely related to the spin current en-
hancement reflected from the Co2MnSn/IrMn interface. Anomalous
Hall resistance (AHR) study shows that its variation is quite similar to
the SMR, suggesting that the SMR enhancement may also be closely
related to spin-orbit coupled (SOC) scattering at the interface due to the
coupling between IrMn and Co2MnSn layer. Temperature influences the
SMR significantly in the trilayer structures at low IrMn thicknesses,
which the IrMn has more ferromagnetic or ferrimagnetic orders than
antiferromagnetic order. It indicates that the physical mechanism of the
influencing of temperature on SMR of FM/AFI(AFM)/Pt trilayer struc-
tures need to be further investigated. The SMR changes its sign from
positive to negative at temperatures lower than 50 K, revealing that
spin-flop coupling between IrMn and Co2MnSn could happen at the
interface.
X. Huang et al. Journal of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials 477 (2019) 62–67

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