Eddy current interactions in a ferromagnet-normal metal bilayer structure, and its impact on ferromagnetic resonance lineshapes

We investigate the effect of eddy currents on ferromagnetic resonance (FMR) in ferromagnet-normal metal (FM/NM) bilayer structures. Eddy-current effects are usually neglected for NM layer thicknesses below the microwave (MW) skin depth (≃800 nm for Au at 10 GHz). However, we show that in much thinner NM layers (10-100 nm of Au or Cu) they induce a phase shift in the FMR excitation when the MW driving field has a component perpendicular to the sample plane. This results in a strong asymmetry of the measured absorption lines. In contrast to typical eddy-current effects, the asymmetry is larger for thinner NM layers and is tunable through changing the sample geometry and the NM layer thickness.