The saturation field of circular islands, consisting of [Fe84Cu16/MgO]9Fe84Cu16 multilayers, increases with decreasing diameter of the islands. When the diameter of the islands is below 450 nm the field induced changes are dominated by a coherent rotation of the moment of the Fe84Cu16 layers. For diameters of 2 μm and larger, a signature of domain nucleation and evolution is observed. The changes in the saturation field with diameter of the islands are ascribed to the interplay between interlayer exchange coupling, stray field coupling at the edges and the crystalline anisotropy of the Fe84Cu16 layers.

The thermal stability and crystallization mechanism of the Zr59.3Cu28.8Al10.4Nb1.5 (at%) metallic glass produced through selective laser melting SLM (from industrial grade material) was studied and compared with the same alloy produced by suction casting (from laboratory grade material of high purity). Oxygen- and Al-rich particles of a cubic phase (Fd (3) over barm) with a size of up to 200 nm are detected in the as-built selective laser melted samples by transmission electron microscopy. The crystallization process of the cast and SLM samples is investigated by in-situ X-ray diffraction experiments. In the cast samples, the initial crystallization occurs via the formation of a metastable tetragonal phase (Al2Zr3), together with tetragonal CuZr2 and hexagonal Al3Zr4 type structures, while the SLM samples initially crystallize through the formation of the metastable, oxygen- and Al-rich, cubic phase already present before annealing. The main phases present at the end of the crystallization for both type of samples are the same, mainly CuZr2 and Al3Zr4. The differences in the crystallization paths are attributed to differences in the oxygen levels. In general, the higher oxygen content (similar to 1 at%) of the SLM samples results in a decrease of the thermal stability of the alloy and promotes the formation of an oxygen-rich, metastable cubic phase. 

We report on the magnetization dynamics of a square array of mesoscopic disks, fabricated from an iron palladium alloy film. The dynamics properties were explored using ferromagnetic resonance measurements and micromagnetic simulations. The obtained spectra exhibit features resulting from the interactions between the disks, with a clear dependence on both temperature and the direction of the externally applied field. We demonstrate a qualitative agreement between the measured and calculated spectra. Furthermore, we calculated the mode profiles of the standing spin waves excited during time-dependent magnetic field excitations. The resulting maps confirm that the features appearing in the ferromagnetic resonance absorption spectra originate from the temperature- and directional-dependent interdisk interactions.

Here we study the magnetic proximity effect in amorphous layered magnets of alternating high- and low-T-c materials using magnetometry and polarized neutron reflectivity. By altering the thickness of either the high-or low-T-c layer we are able to extract the induced magnetic moment in the low-T-c layer directly and study how it scales with thickness. We observe that the ordering temperature of the low-T-c layer is enhanced and above which a second magnetically ordered state with a very large extension is observed. This induced magnetic state survives to a temperature at least three times that of the ordering temperature of the low-T-c layer and the induced magnetization is approximately constant throughout at least a 10-nm-thick layer. The induced magnetic region within the low-T-c layer does not depend on the thickness of the adjacent high-T-c layer.

The Fe/MgO magnetic tunnel junction is a classic spintronic system, with current importance technologically and interest for future innovation. The key magnetic properties are linked directly to the structure of hard-to-access buried interfaces, and the Fe and MgO components near the surface are unstable when exposed to air, making a deeper probing, nondestructive, in-situ measurement ideal for this system. We have thus applied hard x-ray photoemission spectroscopy (HXPS) and standing-wave (SW) HXPS in the few kilo-electron-volt energy range to probe the structure of an epitaxially grown MgO/Fe superlattice. The superlattice consists of 9 repeats of MgO grown on Fe by magnetron sputtering on an MgO(001) substrate, with a protective Al2O3 capping layer. We determine through SW-HXPS that 8 of the 9 repeats are similar and ordered, with a period of 33 +/- 4 angstrom, with the minor presence of FeO at the interfaces and a significantly distorted top bilayer with ca. 3 times the oxidation of the lower layers at the top MgO/Fe interface. There is evidence of asymmetrical oxidation on the top and bottom of the Fe layers. We find agreement with dark-field scanning transmission electron microscope (STEM) and x-ray reflectivity measurements. Through the STEM measurements, we confirm an overall epitaxial stack with dislocations and warping at the interfaces of ca. 5 angstrom. We also note a distinct difference in the top bilayer, especially MgO, with possible Fe inclusions. We thus demonstrate that SW-HXPS can be used to probe deep buried interfaces of novel magnetic devices with few-angstrom precision.

The weak signal strength in electron magnetic circular dichroism (EMCD) measurements remains one of the main challenges in the quantification of EMCD related EELS spectra. As a consequence, small variations in peak intensity caused by changes of background intervals, choice of method for extraction of signal intensity and equally differences in sample quality can cause strong changes in the EMCD signal. When aiming for high resolution quantitative EMCD, an additional difficulty consists in the fact that the two angular resolved EELS spectra needed to obtain the EMCD signal are taken at two different instances and it cannot be guaranteed that the acquisition conditions for these two spectra are identical.  Here, we present an experimental setup where we use a double hole aperture in the transmission electron microscope to obtain the EMCD signal in a single acquisition. This geometry allows for the parallel acquisition of the two electron energy loss spectra (EELS) under exactly the same conditions. We also compare the double aperture acquisition mode with the qE acquisition mode which has been previously used for parallel acquisition of EMCD. We show that the double aperture mode not only offers better signal to noise ratio as compared to qE mode but also allows for much higher acquisition times to significantly improve the signal quality which is crucial for quantitative analysis of the magnetic moments.

Size effect on thermodynamics and diffusion of deuterium in nano-sized vanadium (V) layers is studied. Critical temperature (T-c) for deuterium phase transition is found to decrease with the inverse thickness of V layers and the thermodynamic factor increases as V thickness decreases. These effects are related to the deuterium-deuterium (D-D) interaction change versus V thickness, which experimentally proves that the D-D interaction plays the main contribution to the previously observed V size effect on deuterium chemical diffusion coefficients (D-c). The self-diffusion coefficients (D-s) are obtained through correcting D-c with the thermodynamic factors. It is found that the D-s are similar in 14 and 28 monolayers of V while slightly larger D-s are observed at high concentrations in 14 atomic layers. The weak site blocking effect in the interface is argued to be the main contribution to the observed size effect on D-s.

The double magnetic proximity effect (MPE) in an Fe/Fe0.30V0.70 superlattice is studied by a direct measurement of the magnetization profile using polarized neutron reflectivity. The experimental magnetization profile is shown to qualitatively agree with a profile calculated using density functional theory. The profile is divided into a short range interfacial part and a long range tail. The interfacial part is explained by charge transfer and induced magnetization, while the tail is attributed to the inhomogeneous nature of the FeV alloy. The long range tail in the magnetization persists up to 170% above the intrinsic ordering temperature of the FeV alloy. The observed effects can be used to design systems with a direct exchange coupling between layers over long distances through a network of connected atoms. When combined with the recent advances in tuning and switching, the MPE with electric fields and currents, the results can be applied in spintronic devices. Published under license by AIP Publishing.