Dresden 2003 – scientific programme

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MA: Magnetismus

MA 14: Poster: Schichten(1-31), Spinabh.Trsp.(32-47), Exch.Bias(48-54), Spindyn.(55-64), Mikromag.(65-76), Partikel(77-88), Oflmag.(89-92), Spinelektr.(93-98), Elektr.Theo.(99-103), Mikromag+PhasÜ+Aniso.(104-122), MagnMat.(123-134), Messm+Mol-Mag.(135-139), Kondo(140-151)

MA 14.66: Poster

Tuesday, March 25, 2003, 15:15–19:15, Zelt

Transition of magnetocrystalline anisotropy and domain structure in epitaxial Fe(001) nanomagnets — •Ralph Pulwey, Michael Zölfl, Günther Bayreuther, and Dieter Weiss — Institut für Experimentelle und Angewandte Physik, Universität Regensburg, 93040 Regensburg, Germany

The magnetocrystalline anisotropy of epitaxially grown bcc-Fe(001) films on GaAs(001) shows a transition from a fourfold intrinsic anisotropy in thick films to an uniaxial one in ultra thin films (< 3 nm) and hence can be tuned by varying the film thickness. Here we investigate the consequence of such an anisotropy tuning for the magnetization configurations of nanomagnets. The thickness was varied between 2.5 nm and 30 nm in steps of 2.5 nm. Disks with diameters between 200 nm and 2 µm were patterned with electron beam lithography and ion beam etching. The remanent and ac-demagnetized states as well as the switching behavior were examined by magnetic force microscopy. In addition, we employed micromagnetic simulations to compare with the measured results. A central outcome is that the uniaxial intrinsic anisotropy of the 2.5 nm thick elements always forces the magnetization into one of the two possible states.