AVS 47th International Symposium
    Magnetic Interfaces and Nanostructures Tuesday Sessions
       Session MI+NS+NANO 6-TuA

Paper MI+NS+NANO 6-TuA3
Magnetic Imaging of NiO/Ag(001) Thin Film using PhotoEmission Electron Microscope

Tuesday, October 3, 2000, 2:40 pm, Room 206

Session: Magnetic Imaging II
Presenter: W. Zhu, University of Connecticut
Authors: W. Zhu, University of Connecticut
L. Seve, University of Connecticut
B. Sinkovic, University of Connecticut
A. Scholl, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
S. Anders, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Correspondent: Click to Email
PhontoEmission Electron Microscope (PEEM) combined with linearly polarized synchrotron X-rays provides a powerful way of imaging magnetic domains in antiferromagentic thin films. We have performed magnetic imaging on antiferromagnetic thin film of NiO with PEEM. The 90-Å thick NiO film is of (001) orientation, epitaxially grown on a Ag (001) single crystal substrate. The magnetic contrast is found to be correlated with the topological contrast, which is caused by the local thickness variation in the film. Micro-X-ray absorption spectra (XAS) in areas of different contrast revealed that the directions of magnetic moments within these areas are differently oriented with respect to the X-ray polarization direction. The difference in Micro-XAS from these areas disappeared at temperature of ~350 °C (above the Neel temperature), where the antiferromagnetic order disappears. Experiments with the X-ray polarization direction parallel to [100] and [110] direction of the film give similar results, which indicates that the magnetic contrast is due to the in-plane vs. out-of-plane magnetic moments orientation rather than the differently oriented in-plane moments. These results are consistent with our recent spectroscopic studies of NiO/Ag(001) films of various thickness.