Abstract
We employ superconducting quantum interference device magnetometry to study the thickness dependence of in-plane and out-of-plane magnetic anisotropic properties of Fe films grown on high-index GaAs(113)A substrates by molecular beam epitaxy. The evolution of the in-plane magnetic anisotropy with film thickness is distinguished into two regions. First, for Fe film thicknesses ≤50 MLs, we observe an in-plane uniaxial magnetic anisotropy with the easy axis along the in-plane 〈332〉 axes. Second, for Fe film thicknesses ≥70 MLs, we observe a four-fold magnetic anisotropy with the easy axis along the in-plane 〈031〉 axes. The existence of an out-of-plane perpendicular magnetic anisotropy is also detected in ultrathin Fe films. Similar to Fe on GaAs(001), our results provide evidence for the interfacial origin of the in-plane uniaxial and out-of-plane perpendicular magnetic anisotropy. Both the uniaxial and the perpendicular interface anisotropy are found to be independent of the epitaxial orientation and are hence an intrinsic property of the Fe/GaAs interface.
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