An overview of the current status of the study of spin wave excitations in arrays of magnetic dots and wires is given. We describe both the status of theory and recent inelastic light scattering experiments addressing the three most important issues: the modification of magnetic properties by patterning due to shape aniso-tropies, anisotropic coupling between magnetic islands, and the quantization of spin waves due to the in-plane confinement of spin waves in islands.
Hexagonal BN films have been deposited by rf-magnetron sputtering with simultaneous ion plating. The elastic properties of the films grown on silicon substrates under identical coating conditions have been de-termined by Brillouin light scattering from thermally excited surface phonons. Four of the five independent elastic constants of the deposited material are found to be c11 = 65 GPa, c13 = 7 GPa, c33 = 92 GPa and c44 = 53 GPa exhibiting an elastic anisotropy c11/c33 of 0.7. The Young's modulus determined with load indenta-tion is distinctly larger than the corresponding value taken from Brillouin light scattering. This discrepancy is attributed to the specific morphology of the material with nanocrystallites embedded in an amorphous matrix.
We report on the observation of spin wave quantization in square arrays of micron size circular magnetic Ni80Fe20 dots by means of Brillouin light scattering spectroscopy. For a large wavevector interval several discrete, dispersionless modes with a frequency splitting of up to 2.5 GHz were observed. The modes are identified as magnetostatic surface spin waves laterally quantized due to in- plane confinement in each single dot. The frequencies of the lowest observed modes decrease with increasing distance between the dots, thus indicating an essential dynamic magnetic dipole interaction between the dots with small interdot distances.
The dispersions of dipolar (Damon-Eshbach modes) and exchange dominated spin waves are calculated for in-plane magnetized thin and ultrathin cubic films with (111) crystal orientation and the results are compared with those obtained for the other principal planes. The properties of these magnetic excitations are examined from the point of view of Brillouin light scattering experiments. Attention is paid to study the spin-wave frequency variation as a function of the magnetization direction in the film plane for different film thicknesses. Interface anisotropies and the bulk magnetocrystalline anisotropy are considered in the calculation. A quantitative comparison between an analytical expression obtained in the limit of small film thickness and wave vector and the full numerical calculation is given.
All contributing magnetic anisotropies in (110)-oriented exchange biased Ni 80 Fe 20 /Fe 50 Mn 50 double layers prepared by molecular beam epitaxy on Cu(110) single crystals have been determined by means of Brillouin light scattering. Upon covering the Ni 80 Fe 20 films by Fe 50 Mn 50 , a unidirectional anisotropy contribution appears, which is consistent with the measured exchange bias field. The uniaxial and fourfold in-plane anisotropy contributions are largely modified by an amount, which scales with the Ni 80 Fe 20 thickness, indicating an interface effect. The strong uniaxial anisotropy contribution shows an in-plane switching of the easy axis from [110] to [001] with increasing Ni 80 Fe 20 -layer thickness. The large mode width of the spin wave excitations, which exceeds the linewidth of uncovered Ni 80 Fe 20 films by a factor of more than six, indicates large spatial variations of the exchange coupling constant. (C) 1998 American Institute of Physics.
We report on Brillouin light scattering investigations of the elastic properties in Co/Ni superlattices which exhibit localized electronic eigenstates near the Fermi level causing an oscillation of the resistivity as a function of the superlattice periodicity A. No oscillations of the Rayleigh and Sezawa mode as a function of A could be observed within an error margin of +- 2% indicating that the localized electronic states do not contribute to the elastic constants.
Static magnetic and spin wave properties of square lattices of permalloy micron dots with thicknesses of 500 Å and 1000 Å and with varying dot separations have been investigated. A magnetic fourfold anisotropy was found for the lattice with dot diameters of 1 micrometer and a dot separation of 0.1 micrometer. The anisotropy is attributed to an anisotropic dipole-dipole interaction between magnetically unsaturated parts of the dots. The anisotropy strength (order of 100000 erg/cm^3 ) decreases with increasing in-plane applied magnetic field.
Static magnetic and spin wave properties of square lattices of permalloy micron dots with thicknesses of 500 Å and 1000 Å and with varying dot separations have been investigated. The spin wave frequencies can be well described taking into account the demagnetization factor of each single dot. A magnetic four-fold anisotropy was found for the lattice with dot diameters of 1 micrometer and a dot separation of 0.1 micrometer. The anisotropy is attributed to an anisotropic dipole-dipole interaction between magnetically unsaturated parts of the dots. The anisotropy strength (order of 100000 erg/cm^3 ) decreases with increasing in-plane applied magnetic field.
Annual Report 1997
(1998)
