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Summary: SPIN-FLOP ORDERING FROM FRUSTRATED
FERRO- AND ANTIFERROMAGNETIC INTERACTIONS:
A COMBINED THEORETICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL
STUDY OF A Mn/Fe(100) MONOLAYER
The magnetic structure of ultrathin antifer-
romagnetic (AFM) overlayers on ferromag-
netic (FM) substrates determines the prop-
erties of ferromagnetic and antiferromagnet-
ic multilayers that are key constituents of
devices such as exchange-bias or tunneling
magnetoresistance recording systems. Com-
plex, non-collinear, magnetic structures are
expected at these interfaces, for spin canting
minimizes the exchange energy between a
ferromagnet and an antiferromagnet that
exposes a plane with antiparallel spins. The
resulting spin-flop alignment of the
moments in the antiferromagnet, perpendi-
cular to the magnetization in the ferromag-
net, is the microscopic basis of the large
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