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TP A2 UP III: Scanning tunneling microscopy and UHV-SQUID magnetometry
(K. Lenz,
R. Nünthel, J. Lindner, B. Michaelis, K. Baberschke)
This part describes absolute
measurements of magnetic moments on ultrathin films performed by a
novel in situ (UHV-compatible) high-TC-SQUID magnetometer
and real images of the surface morphology of ultrathin films as they
are recorded by Scanning Tunneling Microscopy (STM).
A novel UHV SQUID magnetometer was recently built up. A commercial SQUID magnetometer with a high-TC SQUID sensor was installed inside a liquid nitrogen dewar at a flange of an ultrahigh vacuum chamber. By scanning the sample, i.e. an ultrathin film evaporated on a single crystalline substrate like Cu(001), parallel to the SQUID plane the stray field is directly measured and the magnetization of the film is determined. The SQUID is calibrated once with the help of Helmholtz coils and it does not need any reference sample. Therefore, it is an absolute magnetometry. The basic schematic setup and the principle diagram of operation are shown in Fig. 1. Together it is presented the stray field of a 2.9 ML Co/Cu(001) at room temperature. A very high signal to noise ratio of 40:1 is achieved with a single scan. The chamber offers the opportunity to use all conventional techniques for the characterization of thin films (LEED, AES etc.) and has capabilities of cooling with Liquid Helium resulting in an optimum temperature of 40 K at the sample position. In the inset of Fig. 1 we see temperature-dependent measurements for 2 ML Co/Cu(001). Extrapolating to T=0 and dividing by the number of magnetic atoms one obtains the magnetic moment per atom [Ref. 251] . This new SQUID magnetometry was applied to study the thickness dependence of the magnetic moments of ultrathin Co/Cu(001) films and the effects of capping. The results are plotted in Fig. 2. One may see a linear dependence of the magnetic moments with the inverse thickness. At the large thickness limit the samples behave bulk-like while at the limit of 2 ML an enhancement (reduction) of the magnetic moment is encountered for the uncapped (capped) films. Linear regression of the two data sets may provide a bulk-like volume contribution, enhanced surface and reduced interface moments as they are indicated in Fig. 2 [Refs. 238, 254] .
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Fig. 5 |
Fig. 6:
(a) 24x24 nm 2 STM image of 9 ML Ni/Cu(001) and (b) the
corresponding
configuration of P. Bruno's model
[Ref. 224]
STM can be used to observe mechanisms which improve the growth of ultrathin
film structures. Such a mechanism is provided by using surfactants during
the film deposition. In many cases gases can be used for this purpose. In
case of magnetic thin films the growth with the help of surfactants may –
besides the structural changes – also lead to changes of the magnetic properties.
Figures 7-9 show the result of using oxygen as surfactant during the growth
of Ni on Cu(001). In Fig. 7 a STM images of the bare Cu(001) surface together
with its 1x1 LEED pattern is presented. The right picture shows the corresponding
hard sphere model of the fcc (001) surface which can be imaged by STM with
atomic resolution. Fig. 8 shows the Cu(001) surface after dosing 1200L
of oxygen at elevated temperatures. LEED as well as STM reveal the well-known
missing row reconstruction. The missing rows and
the oxygen atoms can be resolved within the STM image from which the hard
sphere model can be derived. The saturation coverage of oxygen is 0.5 ML-equivalents,
so that the amount of oxygen acting as surfactant can be well controlled.
The result after a 5.5 ML thick Ni film has been deposited onto the preoxidized
Cu(001) surface is presented in the Fig. 9. The LEED pattern reveals a
structure resulting from the oxygen atoms that have detached from the Cu
substrate and successively swim on top of the growing Ni film. This is shown
by the STM image where the c(2x2) structure can be observed. The scenario
suggested by the STM and LEED investigations could be confirmed by AUGER
electron spectroscopy, element-specific NEXAFS results and also by theoretical
calculations, for details see Ref.[270].
Fig. 7 |
Fig. 8 |
Fig. 9 |
The influence on the magnetic properties of the Ni films grown with
the help of oxygen has been investigated with MOKE and FMR. Some results
are shown in Fig. 10. Fig. 10a shows results from polar MOKE measurements
which measures the out-of-plane component of the film magnetization during
the film growth, i.e. as a function of the film thickness for Ni/Cu(001)
(green symbols) as well as Ni on
reconstructed Cu(001) (black symbols). Complete
hysteresis loops for the films on the preoxidized surface taken for specific
thicknesses (indicated by the arrows in (a)) are plotted in Fig. 10b. Compared
to Ni films grown without oxygen the films grown with the use of O as surfactant
show an out-of-plane magnetization already for smaller film thicknesses.
This implies that the reorientation thickness which is known to occur for
the Ni/Cu(001) system between 8-11ML is reduced for Ni films deposited on
the preoxidized surface. The influence of oxygen is also found in FMR shown
in the upper right panel of Fig. 10 by the example of a 6 ML thick Ni films
grown on either the clean (red signal at lower fields) or the preoxidized
surface. The occurrence of the resonance below (above) 3kOe for the Ni film
on the clean (preoxidized) Cu surface indicates that the easy axis of magnetization
lies in (out-of) the film plane, thus confirming the MOKE results. For
a 5 ML thick Ni film on the preoxidized surface the transition from in-plane
at lower temperatures towards out-of-plane at higher temperature could
be detected via FMR as presented by Fig. 10d. A detailed analysis of the
thickness dependence of the FMR signal for a constant reduced temperature
reveals that the oxygen atoms mainly reduce the surface anisotropy KS1
(see schematical drawing in Fig .10d) which for Ni/Cu(001) favors the in-plane
orientation of the magnetization, whereas the strain induced volume part
KV favoring an out-of-plane alignment is almost unaffected
(Ref.[268]). The reduction of KS1
thus is the reason for the shift of the reorientation. The fact that the
strain in the film stays the same with and without oxygen can be directly
seen from I/V-LEED scans as shown in Fig. 11. While the tetragonal distortion
of the Ni films can be derived from the shift of the high energy Bragg peaks
towards higher energies, no difference between the peak positions for Ni
films grown with and without oxygen are observed.
(last update: 13.10.2003)