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Phys. Rev. Lett. 72, 920–923 (1994)

[Issue 6 – 7 February 1994 ]

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Surface spin-flop transition in Fe/Cr(211) superlattices: Experiment and theory

R. W. Wang and D. L. Mills

Institute for Surface and Interface Science, University of California, Irvine, California 92717

Eric E. Fullerton, J. E. Mattson, and S. D. Bader

Argonne National Laboratory, 9700 South Cass Avenue, Argonne, Illinois 60439

We report experimental and theoretical studies of the magnetization curves of Fe/Cr(211) superlattices with antiferromagnetic interlayer coupling and uniaxial in-plane anisotropy. There are substantial differences between structures with an even and an odd number of Fe layers, when the magnetic field is applied along the easy axis. For even layered superlattices, the inequivalence of the terminal Fe layers gives rise to a surface spin-flop transition that evolves into a bulk spin-flop arrangement with increasing magnetic field, as originally envisioned by Keffer and Chow [Phys. Rev. Lett. 31, 1061 (1973)].

©1994 The American Physical Society

URL: http://link.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v72/p920
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.72.920
PACS: 75.50.Rr, 75.30.Pd, 75.70.Fr

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