Berlin 2018 – scientific programme
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MA: Fachverband Magnetismus
MA 43: Magnetic textures I
MA 43.10: Talk
Thursday, March 15, 2018, 12:00–12:15, EB 407
Surface spin flop in synthetic layered perpendicular antiferromagnets — •Benny Böhm1, Lorenzo Fallarino2, and Olav Hellwig1,2 — 1Institute of Physics, Chemnitz University of Technology — 2Institute of Ion Beam Physics and Materials Research, Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf
In 1968 the surface spin flop transition was theoretically predicted by Mills [1] for antiferromagnetic superlattices. At a later time, Wang et al. [2] showed experimentally the surface spin flop for Fe/Cr epitaxial superlattices on MgO for in-plane uniaxial anisotropy by comparing theoretical hysteresis loops with magnetometry data.
Here we show for the first time that the surface spin flop state can occur in synthetic layered antiferromagnets with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA). PMA synthetic antiferromagnets made of Ir-coupled Co/Pt multilayer blocks exhibit different magnetization reversal behavior, depending on their exact magnetic energy balance. If the interlayer exchange energy term, which is mediated by the Ir inter-layers, is tuned to be the dominating term in our system, then the synthetic antiferromagnets with even number of Co/Pt blocks reveal a surface spin flop. The magnetic reversal of systems with odd and even number of repeats are compared and discussed in relation to micromagnetic simulations. The latter indicates the possibility to extend the surface spin flop state with its vertical domain wall through the system down to remanence.
[1] D. L. Mills, Phys. Rev. Lett. 20, 1968, p. 18-21
[2] R. W. Wang et al., Phys .Rev. Lett. 72, 1994, p. 920-923