Facilities

We have two electrical probe stations that allow us to measure longitudinal and transverse resistances in Hall bar devices using a lock-in technique. In the first station, DUTs are mounted on a motorized rotation stage and electrically connected using a wire bonder. The DUT can be rotated 360° in any given plane between the poles of an electromagnet producing fields up to 2.3 Teslas.

Being part of ICMAB, our research group has access to all the Scientific and Technical services of the Institute. These include: electron microscpy, low temperature and magnetometry, X-ray diffractometry, scanning probe microscopy, spectroscopic techniques, thermal analysis, thin films deposition (PLD and MBE).

We have two Magneto-optic Kerr Effect (MOKE) setups operating in wide-field (WF) and scanning laser (SL) modes, respectively. WF-MOKE allows us to image magnetic domains in ultrathin (0.5-50 nm) ferromagnetic films with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy with resolution down to 1 um^2. It is equipped with a blue LED source and a high-speed/resolution camera to capture magnetization dynamics in (quasi-)real-time.

We have a dual-chamber magnetron sputtering tool with dc and rf deposition capabilities. Chambers are dedicated to metal and oxide deposition, respectively, with a separate load lock chamber. We can deposit from two different targets simultaneously (co-deposition) in both chambers, and they can operate independently.