Quantifying perpendicular magnetic anisotropy at the Fe-MgO(001) interface

Charles-Henri Lambert (1) , A. Rajanikanth (1) , Thomas Hauet (1) , Stéphane Mangin (1) , E. E. Fullerton (2) , Stéphane Andrieu (1)

1 IJL - Institut Jean Lamour
2 UC San Diego - University of California [San Diego]

We show that Fe-MgO interfaces possess strong perpendicular magnetic anisotropy of 1.0 +/- 0.1 erg/cm(2) in fully epitaxial MgO/V/Fe/MgO(001) and MgO/Cr/Fe/MgO(001) heterostructures. The sign and amplitude of the total anisotropy are quantified as a function of Fe thickness using magnetometry and ferromagnetic resonance. There is a transition from out-of-plane to in-plane anisotropy for 6 Fe monolayers in V/Fe/MgO and only 4 monolayers in Cr/Fe/MgO. A detailed study of the Fe magnetization and effective anisotropy in both systems explains this difference and quantifies the Fe-MgO interface anisotropy.

Domaines: Science des matériaux [cond-mat.mtrl-sci]

Charles-Henri Lambert, A. Rajanikanth, Thomas Hauet, Stéphane Mangin, E. E. Fullerton, et al.. Quantifying perpendicular magnetic anisotropy at the Fe-MgO(001) interface. Applied Physics Letters, 2013, 102 (12), pp.122410. ⟨10.1063/1.4798291⟩. ⟨hal-01276614⟩