Thickness dependent manipulation of uniaxial magnetic anisotropy in Fe-thin films by oblique deposition

Abstract

The uniaxial magnetic anisotropy of obliquely deposited Fe(001)/Pd film on MgO(001) substrate is investigated as a function of deposition angle and film thickness. The values of incidence angle of Fe flux relative to surface normal of the substrate are 0 • , 45 • , 55 • , and 70 • , respectively. In-situ low energy electron diffraction is employed to investigate the surface structures of the samples. The Fe film thicknesses are determined to be 50 ML, 45 ML, 32 ML, and 24 ML (1 ML = 0.14 nm) by performing x-ray reflectivity on the grown samples, respectively. The normalized remanent magnetic saturation ratio and coercivity are obtained by the longitudinal surface magneto-optical Kerr effect. Here, the magnetic anisotropy constants are quantitatively determined by fitting the anisotropic magnetoresistance curves under different fields. These measurements show four-fold cubic anisotropy in a large Fe film thickness (50 ML) sample, but highly in-plane uniaxial magnetic anisotropies in thin films (24 ML and 32 ML) samples. In the obliquely deposited Fe films, the coercive fields and the uniaxial magnetic anisotropies (UMAs) increase as the deposition angle becomes more and more tilted. In addition, the UMA decreases with the increase of the Fe film thickness. Our work provides the possibility of manipulating uniaxial magnetic anisotropy, and paves the way to inducing UMA by oblique deposition with smaller film thickness.

Magnetoelastic coupling effect of Fe10Co90 films grown on different flexible substrates*

“…[3] Obviously, it is extremely vital to manipulate the magnetic anisotropy in magnetic films. Normally, there are some technical methods to effectively tune the magnetic anisotropy of magnetic films, such as oblique deposition, [4][5][6] annealing under magnetic field, [7] and exchange bias. [8] Recently, the magnetic anisotropy could be changed by modifying the surface topography of magnetic thin films.…”