Münster 1999 – scientific programme

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AM: Magnetismus

AM 10: Postersitzung

AM 10.24: Poster

Tuesday, March 23, 1999, 16:15–20:00, F\"urstenberghaus

Quadratic magneto-optical Kerr-effect contribution in epitaxial Fe(001) films grown on Ag(001) — •S. Riedling, R. Lopusnik, C. Guhrke, S.O. Demokritov, and B. Hillebrands — Fachbereich Physik, Universit"at Kaiserslautern, Erwin-Schr"odinger-Str. 56, 67663 Kaiserslautern

We report systematic investigations of the quadratic contribution to the magneto-optic response in epitaxial Fe(001) films. We have used vector-MOKE-magnetometry to study four samples with Fe-thicknesses between 30Å and 90Å prepared on Ag(001) by means of molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). Vektor-MOKE-magnetometry is sensitive to both the longitudinal and transversal in-plane magnetization component and allows to reconstruct the vectorial in-plane magnetization behavior.

The quadratic contribution to the magneto-optical effect occurs when both the longitudinal and transversal effective magnetization components are simultaneously non zero during the magnetization reversal process. The quadratic contribution manifests itself in a strong asymmetry of the observed hysteresis loops. We observe this behavior only when the applied magnetic field is aligned nearly but not fully along the hard magnetic axis. A detailed, high resolution study of the dependence of the quadratic contribution as a function of the in-plane angle between the applied field and the magnetic symmetry directions of the crystal is presented. Explicite formulae, which describe the linear and quadratic contributions to the observed effect, are shown for a simple system consisting of a few atomic layers. Conclusions about the magnetization reversal mechanism in the observed systems are drawn.