Abstract
We have grown high quality magnetite microcrystals free from antiphase boundaries on Ru(0001) by reactive molecular beam epitaxy, conserving bulk magnetic properties below 20 nm thickness. Magnetization vector maps are obtained by X-ray spectromicroscopy and compared with micromagnetic simulations. The observed domain configurations are dictated purely by shape anisotropy, overcoming the possible influences of (magneto)crystalline anisotropy and defects, thus demonstrating the possibility of designing spin structures in ultrathin, magnetically soft magnetite at will.
Highlights
Magnetite is a useful material in magnetic applications
Being probably the oldest magnetic material used as such, magnetite is a mixed-valence iron oxide with an inverse spinel crystal structure.[1]. It is a soft magnet with a magnetic moment of 4.07μB per formula unit,[2] and a high Curie temperature of 850 K
The inverse spinel structure of magnetite has the tetrahedral sites occupied by Fe3+, while the octahedral ones are populated by both Fe3+ and Fe2+ cations
Summary
Being probably the oldest magnetic material used as such, magnetite is a mixed-valence iron oxide with an inverse spinel crystal structure.[1] In bulk, it is a soft magnet with a magnetic moment of 4.07μB per formula unit,[2] and a high Curie temperature of 850 K. It is the only iron oxide phase that has a mixed cationic valence. This implies that the spin contributions of Fe3+ cancel out between the two lattices, so the net magnetic moment arises mostly from Fe2+ cations. The orbital moment is rather small giving rise to a small magnetocrystalline anisotropy which favors the 〈111〉 easy axes at room temperature
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