AVS 47th International Symposium
    Magnetic Interfaces and Nanostructures Monday Sessions
       Session MI-MoA

Paper MI-MoA5
Spin Reorientation Transition in Magnetically Coupled Fe/Cu/Ni/Cu(001) System

Monday, October 2, 2000, 3:20 pm, Room 206

Session: Thin Films and Multilayers
Presenter: H.J. Choi, University of California, Berkeley
Authors: H.J. Choi, University of California, Berkeley
W.L. Ling, University of California, Berkeley
J.H. Wolfe, University of California, Berkeley
S. Anders, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
A. Scholl, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
F. Nolting, Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory
H. Ohldag, Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory
U. Bevensiepen, University of California, Berkeley
R. Kawakami, University of California, Berkeley
Z. Qiu, University of California, Berkeley
Correspondent: Click to Email
It is well known that low temperature grown Fe film on Cu(001) exhibits spin reorientation transition (SRT) at a critical thickness where the magnetic remanence is greatly suppressed within a pseudo-gap region. Subsequent experiments showed that the loss of the macroscopic magnetization is due to the formation of magnetic stripe domains. It is generally believed that the understanding of the strip domains will greatly advance our knowledge on the magnetic long-range order in two-dimensional Heisenberg system. With this motivation, we investigated the SRT of Fe film in Fe/Cu/Ni/Cu(001) system where the Fe layer is magnetically coupled to the perpendicular magnetization of Ni with the interlayer coupling strength being controlled by the Cu thickness. With in situ surface magneto-optic Kerr effect measurement, we show that the Fe-Ni interlayer coupling results in an alternating alignment of the Fe magnetization with Cu thickness for Fe film thinner than the SRT thickness d@sub R@, but has no effect for Fe film thicker than d@sub R@. The SRT thickness d@sub R@, defined as the onset of in-plane magnetization, was found to be independent of the Fe-Ni interlayer coupling. Within the SRT pseudo-gap region, however, the longitudinal magnetic remanence exhibits oscillatory behavior with Cu thickness with a periodicity exactly half of that of the oscillatory interlayer coupling. This result shows that the strip domains are severely modified by the strength of the Fe-Ni interlayer coupling. To provide more detailed information, element specific domain imaging was taken in this system using photoemission electron microscope at the Advanced Light Source of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.