Mössbauer spectroscopical investigation of the exchange biased Fe/MnF2 interface
Abstract
Two different Fe/MnF2 samples have been prepared bye-beam evaporation on MgO(001) substrates. The Fe layer in the samples includes a 10 Åthick 57Fe probe layer either at the Fe/MnF2 interface (interface sample) or 35 Å away from the interface (center sample). The samples are characterized by X-ray diffraction, conversion electron Mössbauer spectroscopy (CEMS) and SQUID magnetometry. su57Fe CEMS has been employed to study the depth dependent hyperfine interactions in Fe/MnF2 as a function of temperature between 18 K to 300 K. The hyperfine field B hf has been obtained for the interfacial and off-interfacial 57Fe layers. At the interface, besides B hf of bcc-Fe, the presence of a component with a distribution P(B hf ) is observed. The latter is assigned to interfacial 57Fe atoms, indicating some (∼15%, equivalent to ∼1 Fe atomic layer) intermixing at the Fe/MnF2 interface and a decrease of the average <B hf > by 21%. The influence of the interface disappears as the 57Fe probe layer is placed away from the interface. The temperature dependence of the average <B hf > of the interface has been measured. The Fe spins, at remanence, are found to lie in the film plane.
- Publication:
-
ICAME 2005
- Pub Date:
- 2007
- DOI:
- 10.1007/978-3-540-49853-7_111
- Bibcode:
- 2007icam.book.1371S