An Investigation of the Magnetic Evolution of thin Fe and Co film growth on GaN
Abstract
We have studied the chemical, electronic and magnetic characteristics of thin Fe and Co films on both reconstructed and unreconstructed GaN surfaces, using photoemission, soft x-ray absorption and magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD). The experiments were performed at beamline 4IDC at the APS, equipped with a circularly polarized undulator. Charge transfer between the overlayer and substrate was monitered by normalized absorption white line intensities. Sum rules analysis of the XMCD data returns separate orbital and spin contributions to the magnetic moment of the deposited material. The magnetic coercivity depends heavily on the surface condition, with large increases on the reconstructed surface. The unreconstructed surface allows for overlayer relaxation while the reconstructed surface induces strain leading to large differences in the magnetic characteristics of both Fe and Co films on the different surfaces. Use of the Advanced Photon Source was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, under Contact No. W-31-109-ENG-38. This work was supported by NSF grants (DMR-9017997 and DMR-9420425).
- Publication:
-
APS March Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- March 2003
- Bibcode:
- 2003APS..MARD29002R