A versatile rotary-stage high frequency probe station for studying magnetic films and devices

• Main Authors: He, Shikun, Meng, Zhaoliang, Huang, Lisen, Yap, Lee Koon, Zhou, Tiejun, Panagopoulos, Christos
• Other Authors: School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2017
• Subjects: Magnetic Fields; Magnetic Films
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/83947; http://hdl.handle.net/10220/42902
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

We present a rotary-stage microwave probe station suitable for magnetic films and spintronic devices. Two stages, one for field rotation from parallel to perpendicular to the sample plane (out-of-plane) and the other intended for field rotation within the sample plane (in-plane) have been designed. The sample probes and micro-positioners are rotated simultaneously with the stages, which allows the field orientation to cover θ from 0∘ to 90∘ and φ from 0∘ to 360∘. θ and φ being the angle between the direction of current flow and field in a out-of-plane and an in-plane rotation, respectively. The operation frequency is up to 40 GHz and the magnetic field up to 1 T. The sample holder vision system and probe assembly are compactly designed for the probes to land on a wafer with diameter up to 3 cm. Using homemade multi-pin probes and commercially available high frequency probes, several applications including 4-probe DC measurements, the determination of domain wall velocity, and spin transfer torque ferromagnetic resonance are demonstrated.