Interlayer coupling of Fe films across Cr interlayers and its relation to growth and structure

Wolf, J. A.; Leng, Qunwen; Schreiber, R.; Grünberg, P.; Zinn, W.

doi:10.1016/s0304-8853(05)80001-0

Cited by 60 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…Au(10Å) was capped to prevent the oxidation. The thickness of the Cr spacer, 18Å, was selected so that in our samples the first and second Fe layers are coupled ferromagnetically [2] to ensure sufficiently large magnetization for the relaxation measurement even in a small applied field. In order to obtain the samples with several degrees of the interfacial flatness, heat treatment condition was varied as below: 1) the growth temperatures of T s = 300 • C and 400 • C were selected based on the fact that the optimal temperature to obtain the flat Fe(001) surface on the MgO(001) substrate is about 300 • C [9], 2) after evaporating each layer, the sample was annealed at 500 • C for 15 min, and 3) the samples without annealing process for each T s were also prepared.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Interfacial disorder and magnetic frustration in epitaxial Fe/Cr/Fe trilayers studied by thermoremanent magnetization

Nomura¹,

Koba²,

Nakamura³

et al. 2011

J. Phys.: Conf. Ser.

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Abstract. In order to investigate the relaxation phenomena in Fe/Cr(001) system with various degrees of interfacial magnetic frustration, we have epitaxially grown Fe/Cr/Fe(001) trilayers on MgO(001) substrate under several thermal conditions by using molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) technique, and measured the time dependence of the thermoremanent magnetization (TRM) in the absence of magnetic field after field cooling process from 300 K to a measuring temperature 250 K under a magnetic field of 100 Oe after a waiting time tw = 0 ∼ 100 min. The reflection high energy electron diffraction (RHEED) was employed for confirming the epitaxial growth and for evaluating degree of the interfacial flatness in each sample. From the experimental results, we found that 1) all the present epitaxially grown Fe/Cr/Fe(001) trilayers are ferromagnetic at 300 K, 2) the TRM shows the logarithmic time dependence with larger magnetic viscosity coefficient for the samples which have more disordered interface relative to the other samples, and 3) the most disordered sample shows clearly tw dependence as observed in spin glasses. These results indicate that the interfacial magnetic frustration in the epitaxial Fe/Cr(001) system increases with increasing the interfacial disorder.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Fe/Cr multilayer is a well-known system to exhibit the giant magnetoresistance (GMR) [1] and the oscillatory interlayer exchange coupling through Cr spacer [2]. One of recent subjects which have attracted much attention is the interfacial magnetic frustration.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Interfacial disorder and magnetic frustration in epitaxial Fe/Cr/Fe trilayers studied by thermoremanent magnetization

Nomura¹,

Koba²,

Nakamura³

et al. 2011

J. Phys.: Conf. Ser.

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“…Fe(100) thin films on GaAs(100)/Fe substrates were prepared in accordance with recipes, given already in the literature [11,12]. GaAs(100) samples (5 mm×18 mm×0.3 mm) were thoroughly cleaned in acetone and methanol in an ultrasonic bath.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ultrahigh vacuum magnetic force microscopy on in situ grown iron thin films

Leinenbach¹,

Lösch²,

Memmert³

et al. 1998

Applied Physics A: Materials Science & Processing

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Ultrahigh vacuum (UHV) magnetic force microscopy (MFM) was used to investigate the magnetic structure of 10 nm thick Fe films. The films were deposited on 50 nm thick Ag films on GaAs(100)/Fe substrates. The film structure was characterized in situ by scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and low-energy electron diffraction (LEED), showing that the films grow (100)-oriented and that they display a distinct topographic texture. MFM shows that for the as-grown films the magnetization lies within the surface plane. A clear magnetic ripple structure could be identified. Rather irregular domains and 90 • domain walls were also imaged. The wall profiles are of Néel type.Thin film magnetism has attracted considerable interest over the past 50 years. This interest has recently been further boosted by the identification of the giant magnetic resistance in thin magnetic multilayers [1]. Various magnetic imaging techniques, such as the Bitter technique, Kerr microscopy or several methods based on electron microscopy, have been used to image the domain distribution of magnetic thin film samples with high resolution.Following the development of the scanning tunneling microscope (STM) [2] and the scanning force microscope (SFM) [3], the magnetic force microscope (MFM) has emerged as an additional tool for high-resolution imaging of magnetic structures of bulk and thin film samples [4]. MFM allows detection of the lateral distribution of the magnetic stray field in the near-surface region above ferromagnetic samples. On the one hand, this can be used to image the domain distribution of the sample, while on the other hand the stray field distribution also contains important information on the internal fine structure of domain boundaries. MFM imaging can therefore be used to probe the micromagnetism of thin film samples sensitively [5][6][7].Most instrumental SFM/MFM setups are operated under atmospheric conditions. In the case of MFM investigations of thin film samples this generates the problem that thin films * Corresponding author of magnetic metals, which are commonly rather reactive, either have to be protected by a passivation layer (commonly a thin noble metal layer) or that the near-surface region is oxidized and contaminated. As a result the crucial near-surface region will be structurally and electronically altered, leading to possible ambiguities in the correlation of MFM images to the micromagnetic structure.The influence of surface contamination can be greatly reduced by performing the deposition and the MFM characterization of thin film samples in situ in UHV. Here, the first results of a comprehensive UHV MFM study on thin Fe films are presented, where the samples are grown in UHV. They were first characterized by Auger electron spectroscopy (AES), low-energy electron diffraction (LEED) and STM before probing the magnetic structure by MFM. ExperimentalFor the study a UHV system was used in which several metal evaporators, a combined AES/LEED system, a combined secondary electron microscope (SEM)/STM system, and an S...

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“…Obviously, the improvement of the bottom Fe/Cr interface due to the optimized growth of the bottom Fe layer 6 is sufficient and necessary for the observation of 2 ML oscillations as they have not been observed in samples entirely grown at room temperature. [2][3][4] For the Au covered part of the Cr wedge ͓Fig. 2͑b͔͒ the coupling curve looks clearly different: ͑i͒ the long-period oscillations are absent and the short-period oscillations dominate, ͑ii͒ the oscillations reside on a linearly increasing background, and ͑iii͒ the coupling strength is reduced by a factor of about 50 ͓note the different vertical scales of Figs.…”

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confidence: 98%

In-plane momentum conservation in Fe/Cr/Au/Fe(001) layered structures

et al. 1999

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We study the effect of an Au layer at one of the Cr/Fe interfaces in epitaxial Fe/Cr/Au/Fe͑001͒ sandwich structures on the magnetic interlayer coupling behavior by magneto-optical Kerr effect measurements and on the growth by scanning tunneling microscopy. The main effect of the Au layer is the suppression of the long-period oscillations of the magnetic interlayer coupling, while the short-period oscillations become dominant although their amplitude is stronger attenuated than ϰD Ϫ2 , where D is the total thickness of the nonferromagnetic spacer layers. These findings are explained with the shapes of the Fermi surfaces of the spacer materials ͑Au and Cr͒ and in-plane momentum conservation at the Cr/Au interface of the electrons that mediate the coupling. This interpretation implicates that the N-centered ellipse of the Cr Fermi surface is the origin of the long-period oscillations across Cr spacers.

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Interlayer coupling of Fe films across Cr interlayers and its relation to growth and structure

Cited by 60 publications

References 18 publications

Interfacial disorder and magnetic frustration in epitaxial Fe/Cr/Fe trilayers studied by thermoremanent magnetization

Interfacial disorder and magnetic frustration in epitaxial Fe/Cr/Fe trilayers studied by thermoremanent magnetization

Ultrahigh vacuum magnetic force microscopy on in situ grown iron thin films

In-plane momentum conservation in Fe/Cr/Au/Fe(001) layered structures

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