| AVS 59th Annual International Symposium and Exhibition | |
| Magnetic Interfaces and Nanostructures | Tuesday Sessions |
| Session MI+EN+BI-TuA |
| Session: | Fundamental Problems in Magnetism |
| Presenter: | J.A. Arregi, CIC nanoGUNE Consolider, Spain |
| Authors: | J.A. Arregi, CIC nanoGUNE Consolider, Spain J.B. González-Díaz, CIC nanoGUNE Consolider, Spain O. Idigoras, CIC nanoGUNE Consolider, Spain A. Berger, CIC nanoGUNE Consolider, Spain |
| Correspondent: | Click to Email |
Generalized Magneto-Optical Ellipsometry (GME) has emerged in the last decade as a methodology to characterize magnetic materials with a high degree of precision, by means of utilizing the magneto-optical Kerr effect [1]. Compared to other magneto-optical characterization methods based on the same effect, GME has two key advantages: it can measure both the optical and magneto-optical constants, and it allows full vector magnetometry, all with one simple experimental set-up. The technique has been successfully employed in the study of diverse magnetization reversal processes, for the purpose of identifying spin-polarized electronic states in multiferroic materials [2], as well as for the measurement of the magnetization orientation using 2D vector magnetometry [3].
Even if some works have suggested the possibility to perform quantitative 3D vector magnetometry using the GME technique [4], actual measurements have not been demonstrated so far. Here, we extract the field dependent evolution of the three magnetization components during the reversal process. In order to do so, we exploit the different symmetries of the longitudinal, transverse and polar Kerr effect around different polarizer/analyzer crossing points, which allows us to separate the information of each of the magnetically induced contributions to the non-diagonal reflection matrix elements. By combining the presence of in-plane uniaxial anisotropy as well as out-of-plane applied magnetic fields in our Co and Co-alloy based thin films, we manage to monitor the evolution of the full magnetization vector as a function of the field.
In addition to this full vector magnetometry capability, we have recently improved this technique to enhance measurement reliability [5] and we also extended its capabilities to characterize materials that are magneto-optically active and optically anisotropic at the same time [6].
References:
[1] A. Berger and M. R. Pufall, Appl. Phys. Lett. 71, 965 (1997)
[2] M. Bastjan, S. G. Singer, G. Neuber et al., Phys. Rev. B 77, 193105 (2008)
[3] A. Berger and M. R. Pufall, J. Appl. Phys. 85, 4583 (1999)
[4] K. Mok, N. Du, and H. Schmidt, Rev. Sci. Instrum. 82, 033112 (2011)
[5] J. A. Arregi, J. B. Gonzalez-Diaz, E. Bergaretxe, O. Idigoras, T. Unsal, and A. Berger, accepted for publication in J. Appl. Phys.
[6] J. B. González-Díaz, J. A. Arregi, E. Bergaretxe, M. J. Fertin, O. Idigoras, and A. Berger, submitted to Appl. Phys. Lett.