Brillouin light scattering on Fe/Cr/Fe thin-film sandwiches

Abstract

Brillouin light scattering (BLS) in the backscattering configuration has been used to study the magnetic excitations in epitaxial Fe(38 Å)/Cr(13 Å)/Fe(38 Å) thin-film sandwiches. Spin-wave frequency was measured versus in-plane wave vector k and static in-plane magnetic field H for both [100] and [110] direction fields and with k perpendicular to H. The range of applied fields was 50–1500 Oe. The wave-number range was 0.45×105–2.3×105 rad/cm. The BLS spectra correlate with magnetization versus field profiles and confirm the antiferromagnetic coupling between the Fe layers. Under low-field conditions and near-antiparallel alignment of the Fe layer magnetization vectors, the spin-wave frequencies from the Stokes and anti-Stokes sides of the BLS spectra are different. These frequencies merge at high field. The low-field splitting feature is very sensitive to small differences in thickness for the magnetic layers and indicates a thickness difference of 9%. Matchups between features of the BLS data and magnetization curves were obtained for the following parameters: magnetic layer saturation induction 4πMs=18.6 kG; cubic anisotropy field HA=550 Oe; in-plane [110] uniaxial anisotropy field HU=76 Oe; antiferromagnetic interlayer exchange coupling field HJ=120 Oe. Spin-wave frequency calculations based on these parameters show quantitative agreement with the measurements. The quantitative fits require inclusion in the theory of an iron layer surface anisotropy with an effective surface anisotropy field of 2 kOe.