Growth and magnetic properties of ultrathin single crystal Fe3O4 film on InAs(100)

✍ Scribed by Huang, Zhaocong ;Zhai, Ya ;Xu, Yongbing ;Wu, Jing ;Thompson, Sarah M. ;Holmes, S. N.

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2011
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 251 KB
• Volume: 208
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0031-8965
• DOI: 10.1002/pssa.201084196

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

Different thickness of ultrathin films of magnetite (Fe~3~O~4~) have been grown epitaxially on zinc‐blende narrow band‐gap semiconductor InAs(100) surfaces by in situ post‐growth annealing of ultrathin epitaxial Fe films at 300 °C in an oxygen partial pressure of 5 × 10^−5^ mbar. Reflection high‐energy electron‐diffraction patterns show that the epitaxial Fe~3~O~4~ films have been rotated by 45° in‐plane to match the InAs substrates. The magnetic hysteresis loops obtained by magneto‐optic Kerr effect (MOKE) shows a in‐plane uniaxial magnetic anisotropy for the ultrathin films, and the global easy axis is rotated from the uniaxial easy [011] direction to the cubic easy [010] direction when the thickness of the film increases.