Nanomachining-enabled strain manipulation of magnetic anisotropy in the free-standing GaMnAs nanostructures

Strain perturbs atomic ordering in solids, with far-reaching consequences from an increased carrier mobility to localization in Si, stabilization of electric dipoles and nanomechanical transistor action in oxides, to the manipulation of spins without applying magnetic fields in n-GaAs. In GaMnAs, a carrier-mediated ferromagnetic semiconductor, relativistic spin-orbit interactions – highly strain-dependent magnetic interactions – play a crucial role in determining the magnetic anisotropy (MA) and anisotropic magnetoresistance (AMR). Strain modifies the MA and AMR in a nanomachined GaMnAs structure as measured by the anomalous Hall effect (AHE) and the planar Hall effect (PHE). Here, we report an MA modification by strain relaxation in an isolated GaMnAs Hall bar structure and by applying a range of local strains via fabricating asymmetrically mechanically buckled GaMnAs micro-Hall bar structures. In the AHE and PHE measurements, we observe a reduction in the in-plane MA and an enhancement in the out-of-plane MA as the compressive strain due to the lattice mismatch relaxes in the suspended structure. The functionality of such mechanical manipulation, as well as the two-level mechanical state and the corresponding AHE responses, is demonstrated by a fully scalable binary mechanical memory element in a GaMnAs single Hall cross structure.