Low temperature oxidation mechanisms of nanocrystalline magnetite thin film J. Appl. Phys. 113, 013510 (2013) In situ control of electronic phase separation in La1/8 Pr4/8Ca3/8MnO3/PNM-PT thin films using ferroelectricpoling-induced strain J. Appl. Phys. 113, 013705 (2013) Spin precession modulation in a magnetic bilayer Appl. Phys. Lett. 101, 262406 (2012) Alternating domains with uniaxial and biaxial magnetic anisotropy in epitaxial Fe films on BaTiO3 Appl. Phys. Lett. 101, 262405 (2012) Additional information on J. Appl. Phys. We have studied the evolution of the magnetic in-plane anisotropy in epitaxial Fe/GaAs films of both ͑001͒ and ͑110͒ orientation as a function of the Fe layer thickness using the longitudinal magneto-optic Kerr effect and Brillouin light scattering. Magnetization curves which are recorded in situ during film growth reveal a continuous change of the net anisotropy axes with increasing film thickness. This behavior can be understood to arise from the combination of a uniaxial and a cubic in-plane magnetic anisotropy which are both thickness dependent. Structural analysis of the substrate and Fe film surfaces provides insight into the contribution of atomic steps at the interfaces to the magnetic anisotropy. Changing the degree of crystalline order at the Fe-GaAs interface allows us to conclude that the magnetic anisotropies are determined by atomic scale order.

We have studied the magnetization reversal and magnetoresistance behavior in lithographically defined structures based on a 400 Å Ni80Fe20 film. The structures consist of square arrays of holes with size d in the range from 0.5 to 15 μm fabricated using electron beam lithography and an optimized pattern transfer process. For the field applied along the intrinsic easy axis, a marked increase in the coercive field is observed as the hole size is decreased. This has been attributed to the pinning of the domain walls in the vicinity of the holes. However, for the field applied along the intrinsic hard axis direction, there is a marked increase in the remanence as the hole size is reduced due to the competition between the intrinsic uniaxial anisotropy field and the shape induced magnetic anisotropy field. Unusual magnetoresistance effects are observed as a function of orientation of applied field in submicron structures.

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The field-dependent magnetoresistance (MR) characteristic and magnetic hysteresis behavior has been studied in 300–500 Å thickness Ni80Fe20 wires of variable width (w) in the range from 0.2 to 10 μm. As the width of the wire decreases, a marked increase in the easy axis coercive field is seen for fields applied along the wire axis and the form of the MR characteristic is markedly modified for the in-plane perpendicular hard axis direction with a large field-dependent MR response observed for applied field strengths exceeding the edge demagnetizing field. The low field hard axis results are discussed in terms of an inhomogeneous spin configuration across the width of the wires arising from the spatial variation of the demagnetizing field.