We have investigated the magnetic properties of epitaxially grown Fe/NiO/Fe(001) trilayers for different thickness combinations of the NiO spacer and of the Fe overlayer. The magneto optical Kerr effect has been exploited to study the in-plane magnetization reversal processes in the iron layers. Further information has been obtained by means of spin polarized inverse photoemission spectroscopy. We show the existence of a critical value tc of the NiO thickness tAFM for the magnetic coupling between the Fe layers at zero applied field: for tAFM<tc the magnetization directions align perpendicularly, while the alignment is collinear for thicker spacers. A phenomenological model has been developed to reproduce the reversal properties of the trilayer and determine the dependence of the coupling energy between the Fe ferromagnetic layers as a function of their relative orientation. We find that the observed behavior cannot be reproduced by a Slonczewski's coupling term, but rather it is obtained when a biquadratic term is employed.

Magnetization reversal properties of Fe/NiO/Fe(001) trilayers

VAVASSORI, Paolo;
2005

Abstract

We have investigated the magnetic properties of epitaxially grown Fe/NiO/Fe(001) trilayers for different thickness combinations of the NiO spacer and of the Fe overlayer. The magneto optical Kerr effect has been exploited to study the in-plane magnetization reversal processes in the iron layers. Further information has been obtained by means of spin polarized inverse photoemission spectroscopy. We show the existence of a critical value tc of the NiO thickness tAFM for the magnetic coupling between the Fe layers at zero applied field: for tAFM
2005
A., Brambilla; P., Biagioni; M., Portalupi; M., Zani; L., Duo; Vavassori, Paolo; R., Bertacco; F., Ciccacci
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11392/1211072
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