FMR studies of magnetic properties of Co and Fe thin films on Al 2O3 and MgO substrates

Abstract

The effect of substrates on the magnetic properties has been studied for Co and Fe films both on Al2O3 (112̄0) and MgO (001) substrates by using ferromagnetic resonance techniques. For Fe(001)/MgO(001) samples the thickness dependence of the magnetocrystalline constant and of the effective magnetization values have been determined from the in-plane angular variation of the resonance field H0. Different reasons for the thickness dependencies of these parameters are discussed. For Co(111)/Al 2O3(112̄0) the angular variation of H0 exhibits an uniaxial anisotropy, for which several causes are discussed. For Co(112̄0)/MgO(100) a four-fold in-plane anisotropy was observed which is due to the twinned structure of these samples.