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Temperature dependence of bulk and interface contributions to the magnetic damping of Permalloy thin films

Verena Ney1, Kilian Lenz2, Fabian Ganss2, René Hübner2, Jürgen Lindner2, and Andreas Ney1,*

  • *Contact author: andreas.ney@jku.at
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Phys. Rev. Materials 10, 024409 – Published 23 February, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/61vn-39dq

Abstract

The magnetic damping of Ni80Fe20 [Permalloy (Py)] thin films is studied via temperature- and frequency-dependent ferromagnetic resonance (FMR) as a function of the Py layer thickness for two different thickness series, Al/Py/sapphire and Al/Py/Al/sapphire, respectively. Additional magnetic and structural characterization is done by superconducting quantum interference device magnetometry as well as x-ray reflectivity and transmission electron microscopy. The frequency dependence of the FMR linewidth allows us to separate the Gilbert-like contributions from non-Gilbert-like ones like two-magnon scattering (TMS) processes. The thickness dependence allows us to separate the derived magnetic parameters such as saturation magnetization Ms, TMS contribution Γ, and Gilbert damping parameter α into their respective bulk and interfacial contributions. While the bulk contribution αbulk monotonously decreases with temperature from 0.0061(1) down to 0.0054(1) for both samples series, the interfacial contribution αinterface shows a subsequent increase at low temperature. This is rather pronounced for the Al/Py/sapphire series, caused by a temperature-dependent TMS contribution. For the Al/Py/Al/sapphire series, the increase at low temperatures is much less pronounced, and a temperature-independent TMS contribution is only found for the thinnest sample due to a wavy Py film morphology. Correcting for the TMS contributions allows us to extract αbulk(T) which reflects the intrinsic magnetic damping properties of sputtered Py thin films.

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References (21)

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Phys. Rev. Materials 10, 024409– Published 23 February, 2026
  • Received 13 November 2025
  • Accepted 3 February 2026
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