The influence of high-energy xenon irradiation on magnetization, Faraday rotation and FMR linewidth of single crystal YIG films

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Abstract
Single crystal Y 3 Fe 5 O 12 films have been irradiated with 6 MeV/u xenon ions. The temperature dependence of the saturation magnetization indicates that the resulting nuclear tracks have a well defined diameter of 18 nm. The temperature dependence of the Faraday rotation of the irradiated compared to as-grown films shows a different behaviour at low temperatures. This is attributed to a deviation of the sublattice moments in the boundary region of the tracks. The FMR linewidth of one of the irradiated films exhibits a maximum centered at 40 K which is characteristic for Fe 2+ centers. 10 hours annealing at 793 K reduces this maximum drastically. Annealing experiments on a Gd 1.9 Bi 1.1 Fe 4.6 Ga 0.4 O 12 film irradiated with 3 × 10 11 cm -2 xenon ions of specific energy 1.4 MeV per nucleon yielded activation energies ranging from 0.9 eV up to 5 eV.