Structure and magnetic properties of an epitaxial Fe(110)/MgO(111)/GaN(0001) heterostructure

Abstract

We present the structural and magnetic properties of fully epitaxial Fe(110)/MgO(111)/GaN(0001) tunnel barrier structures grown by molecular beam epitaxy. In-situ reflection high-energy electron diffraction and ex-situ X-ray diffraction measurements indicate epitaxial Fe(110) films on top of an epitaxial 2 nm MgO(111) tunnel barrier on GaN(0001). X-ray reflectivity measurements confirm a roughness of approximately 0.3 nm and 0.7 nm for the MgO/GaN and the Fe/MgO interfaces, respectively. Results of in-situ magneto-optical Kerr effect measurements indicate that 1 nm thick Fe film shows signs of in-plane ferromagnetism at room temperature. Vibrating sample magnetometer measurements determine the saturation magnetisation of the 5 nm thick film to be 1660 ± 100 emu/cm3 and show that this system has a predominant uniaxial anisotropy contribution despite the presence of cyclic twinned crystals. We estimate the values of effective uniaxial (KUeff) and cubic (K1eff) anisotropy constants to be 11700 ± 170 erg cm-3 and -3300 ± 700 erg cm-3 by fitting the angular dependence of the magnetising energy.