Atomic structure of CaF2/MnF2–Si(1 1 1) superlattices from X-ray diffraction

An advanced three-dimensional RHEED mapping approach to the diffraction study of Co/MnF2/CaF2/Si(001) epitaxial heterostructures

“…Thicker MnF 2 films exhibit metastable PbO 2type orthorhombic crystal structure (a = 4.960, b = 5.800, c = 5.359 Å ) with the following epitaxial relations: MnF 2 (111) || CaF 2 (111), MnF 2 [211] || Si [112] (Kaveev et al, 2005). Successful attempts have been made to grow MnF 2 /CaF 2 (111) superlattices (Sokolov et al, 2000;Alcock et al, 2007) and MnF 2 layers on a CaF 2 (110) grooved and ridged surface (Kyutt et al, 2007). Magnetic order in MnF 2 /CaF 2 (111) layers has been studied by Golosovsky et al (2006) to show that in PbO 2 -type MnF 2 polymorphs the Mn magnetic moments are aligned along the MnF 2 [001] axis in the antiferromagnetic order below the Neel temperature of 67 K. An understanding of antiferromagnetic layers with a well defined crystal structure and a simple surface morphology is supposed important for studies of proximity effects at ferromagnet-antiferromagnet interfaces.…”