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

Paper MI+NS+NANO 6-TuM8
Correlation of Structural and Magnetic Properties of Fe/Cr(001) Studied by Combined SP-STM and MFM

Tuesday, October 3, 2000, 10:40 am, Room 206

Session: Magnetic Imaging I
Presenter: M. Kleiber, University of Hamburg, Germany
Authors: M. Kleiber, University of Hamburg, Germany
R. Ravlic, University of Hamburg, Germany
M. Bode, University of Hamburg, Germany
R. Wiesendanger, University of Hamburg, Germany
Correspondent: Click to Email
The magnetic structure of ultrahin Fe films on the (001)-surface of a chromium single crystal is the result of the competition between the antiferromagnetic coupling to the alternately magnetized Cr(001)-terraces and the ferromagnetic coupling in the iron layer. It is expected that for thin Fe-films the antiferromagnetic coupling between the Cr-substrate and the Fe-overlayer dominates the surface domain structure while Fe-exhibits a single-domain state for thicker films. By combining STM, spin-polarized STS and UHV-MFM we have correlated the structural and magnetic properties of the Fe/Cr(001) system. These microscopic techniques reveal that the domain structure depends on the local step density. On areas with high step density no domains are found which is expected as the terraces are too small to induce domains in the iron film. In contrast a low step density leads to a domain structure of the Fe-film which is directly linked to the step structure of the underlying Cr-substrate.