Magnetic anisotropy induced by crystal distortion in Ge1-xMnxTe/PbTe//KCl (001) ferromagnetic semiconductor layers

Abstract

Ferromagnetic resonance (FMR) study of magnetic anisotropy is presented for thin layers of IV-VI diluted magnetic semiconductor Ge1-xMnxTe with x = 0.14 grown by molecular beam epitaxy on KCl (001) substrate with a thin PbTe buffer. Analysis of the angular dependence of the FMR resonant field reveals that an easy magnetization axis is located near to the normal to the layer plane and is controlled by two crystal distortions present in these rhombohedral Ge1-xMnxTe layers: the ferroelectric distortion with the relative shift of cation and anion sub-lattices along the [111] crystal direction and the biaxial in-plane, compressive strain due to thermal mismatch.