Mössbauer spectroscopical investigation of the exchange biased Fe/MnF2 interface

B. Sahoo*, W. A.A. Macedo, W. Keune, V. Kuncser, J. Eisenmenger, J. Nogués, I. K. Schuller, I. Felner, Kai Liu, R. Röhlsberger

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

11 Scopus citations

Abstract

Two different Fe/MnF2 samples have been prepared by e-beam evaporation on MgO(001) substrates. The Fe layer in the samples includes a 10 Å thick 57Fe probe layer either at the Fe/MnF2 interface (interface sample) or 35 Å away from the interface (center sample). The samples are characterized by X-ray diffraction, conversion electron Mössbauer spectroscopy (CEMS) and SQUID magnetometry. 57Fe CEMS has been employed to study the depth dependent hyperfine interactions in Fe/MnF2 as a function of temperature between 18 K to 300 K. The hyperfine field Bhf has been obtained for the interfacial and off-interfacial 57Fe layers. At the interface, besides Bhf of bcc-Fe, the presence of a component with a distribution P(Bhf) is observed. The latter is assigned to interfacial 57Fe atoms, indicating some (∼15%, equivalent to ∼1 Fe atomic layer) intermixing at the Fe/MnF2 interface and a decrease of the average <B hf > by 21%. The influence of the interface disappears as the 57Fe probe layer is placed away from the interface. The temperature dependence of the average <Bhf > of the interface has been measured. The Fe spins, at remanence, are found to lie in the film plane.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1371-1377
Number of pages7
JournalHyperfine Interactions
Volume169
Issue number1-3
DOIs
StatePublished - Apr 2006

Keywords

  • Conversion electron Mössbauer spectroscopy
  • Exchange bias
  • Fe/MnF
  • Interfacial properties
  • Spin structure

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