Morphology and magnetic properties of Fe/Au(001) ultrathin films: A HRLEED and SMOKE study. [HRLEED (high-resolution low-energy electron diffractometer); SMOKE (surface magneto-optic Kerr effect)]

Miscellaneous · Wed Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 1992

OSTI ID:7114875

Liew, Y F

The authors have studied and correlated the morphological and magnetic properties of monolayers and submonolayer Fe/Au(001) ultrathin films. The High-Resolution Low-Energy Electron Diffractometer (HRLEED) and the Surface Magneto-Optic Kerr Effect (SMOKE) apparatus were used to characterize the morphologies and magnetic properties of ultrathin ferromagnetic films of Fe deposited on a Au(001) substrate by the Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE) technique. HRLEED with time-dependent, energy-dependent, and temperature-dependent spot profile analysis was used to determine the growth modes, the structure, the size and separation distributions of magnetic islands, and the stability of the Fe/Au(001) ultrathin films. The corresponding magnetic properties such as the coercive field, magnetic anisotropy, saturation and remanence magnetization, and hysteresis loss were extracted from the hysteresis loops measured with the SMOKE technique. The authors correlated the structural properties of the film to the magnetic properties of the film. For submonolayer coverage Fe films on Au(001) surface, a strong perpendicular magnetic anisotropy that aligns the spins out of the plane of the sample was observed. The coercivity and squareness of the hysteresis loop also displayed a strong correlation with the average size of 2D or 3D magnetic islands. The magnetization of these ultrathin films also exhibits temperature dependence. Films of submonolayer coverages with finite size magnetic islands are believed to go super-paramagnetic. For a thicker Fe film of coverage 1.5 ML, the magnetization vanished at [approximately]375[degrees]C. The authors have studied the dynamical scaling of magnetic hysteresis loops in ultrathin ferromagnetic Fe films. The area of the hysteresis loop for a 2D film of about 1.5 ML, in the low magnetizing field amplitude and field frequency regime, scaled according to a power law.

• Research Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Inst., Troy, NY (United States)
• OSTI ID: 7114875
• Resource Relation: Other Information: Thesis (Ph.D.)
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
GOLD
MAGNETIC PROPERTIES
MORPHOLOGY
IRON
THIN FILMS
ELECTRON DIFFRACTION
KERR EFFECT
MAGNETISM
MAGNETO-OPTICAL EFFECTS
MOLECULAR BEAM EPITAXY
SURFACES
COHERENT SCATTERING
DIELECTRIC PROPERTIES
DIFFRACTION
ELECTRICAL PROPERTIES
ELEMENTS
EPITAXY
FILMS
METALS
PHYSICAL PROPERTIES
SCATTERING
TRANSITION ELEMENTS
360104* - Metals & Alloys- Physical Properties
360102 - Metals & Alloys- Structure & Phase Studies