Thickness dependence of the magnetic properties of ripple-patterned Fe/MgO(001) films

Abstract

Grazing incidence Xe+ ion sputtering was used to create a nanoscale ripple pattern on a thin Fe film, epitaxially grown on MgO(001). The Fe film has a thickness gradient of 0-20 nm and a ripple height of about 3 nm, giving rise to a transition from a continuous film to separated nanorods with decreasing film thickness. This allowed the investigation of the competition between the uniaxial and biaxial anisotropy of the irradiated sample as a function of thickness. From magneto-optical Kerr effect measurements, we determine accurately the cubic magnetocrystalline anisotropy and the uniaxial anisotropy that originates from the ripple pattern using a coherent rotation model. Our results show that the uniaxial anisotropy strength increases, whereas the contribution of the biaxial crystal anisotropy decreases, when going from the continuous film to the nanorod structures. © 2011 American Physical Society.