Magnetic moment and anisotropy at the Fe/ZnSe(001) interface studied by conversion electron Mössbauer spectroscopy

• The interface magnetic properties of Fe/ZnSe heterostructures grown on GaAs(001) by molecular-beam epitaxy have been investigated using conversion electron Mössbauer spectroscopy (CEMS) and macroscopic magnetic measurements. For Fe films thinner than 100 Å an in-plane 〈110〉 uniaxial magnetic anisotropy was found and the magnetization loops could successfully be described by the simple Stoner-Wohlfarth model, which implies that the magnetization reverses only by coherent rotation and jump processes. For the interface analysis, a 5-Å-thick layer of enriched 57Fe was deposited on the ZnSe surface and buried under 20 Å of natural Fe. In this way the 57Fe serves as a local probe of the interface magnetic environment in a bulklike Fe film since the CEMS technique is only sensitive to this isotope of Fe. An interface magnetic moment of 2.18 μB was found and, in relation to 2.2 μB for bulk bcc Fe, this precludes the presence of any interface reactions. Surprisingly, however, the direction of the interface magnetic moment turned out to be reoriented from the [110] direction by almost 30°, an effect that was assumed to arise from the distribution of unidirectional tetrahedral bonds present on the Zn c(2×2) reconstructed ZnSe surface.

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NATURVETENSKAP  -- Fysik (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Physical Sciences (hsv//eng)

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