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MA: Fachverband Magnetismus
MA 58: Spintronics II (jointly with TT, HL)
MA 58.4: Vortrag
Donnerstag, 17. März 2011, 18:00–18:15, HSZ 401
Anisotropic polar magneto-optical Kerr effect (MOKE) of thin epitaxial Fe films on GaAs in ab initio theory and experiment — •Sebastian Putz, Martin Gmitra, Georg Woltersdorf, Jaroslav Fabian, and Christian Back — Universität Regensburg, Universitätsstraße 31, 93053 Regensburg
We investigate the anisotropy of the polar magneto-optical Kerr effect (MOKE) of thin epitaxial Fe films on GaAs both in ab initio theory and experiment. The maximum Kerr rotation at almost normal incidence on Fe/GaAs is obtained from the height of the out-of-plane hard-axis magnetization curves of a perpendicularly magnetized Fe/GaAs sample. It is proportional to the off-diagonal terms of the optical conductivity tensor σ of the Fe/GaAs interface. The C2v symmetric anisotropy of the spin-orbit coupling fields at this interface causes an analogous anisotropy of σ. This, in turn, is measured by our polar MOKE setup at almost normal incidence when the direction of polarization of the incoming linearly polarized light is varied, i.e. the direction of polarization is turned around the surface normal of the out-of-plane magnetized sample. Additionally, we use the linearized augmented plane-wave (LAPW) method, as implemented in WIEN2k, to calculate the optical conductivity tensor σ and obtain the anisotropic polar magneto-optical Kerr angle for experimentally relevant Fe/GaAs slabs.
We would like to thank Josef Ammerl from MueTec GmbH for developing and manufacturing essential parts of our experimental setup. This work is supported by the DFG SFB 689.