Non-monotonic step-induced magnetic anisotropy of Fe films prepared on vicinalAu(001) surfaces with different step orientations

Abstract

We report on investigations of the crystallographic structure and the magneticanisotropies of epitaxial Fe films deposited on vicinal Au(001) surfaces for twomiscut directions and various miscut angles. The stepped surface generates auniaxial in-plane anisotropy contribution in addition to the fourfold anisotropycharacteristic for Fe(001). With the step edges perpendicular to [100]Fethe uniaxial anisotropy constant is a non-monotonic function of the vicinal angle.At low vicinal angles the easy magnetization axis is parallel to the step edges. Theeffective uniaxial anisotropy constant first increases and then decreases for increasingvicinal angle, crossing zero at about 1.3°± 0.2°. For higher angles the easy axis isperpendicular to the step edges. For the step edges perpendicular to [110]Fethe step-induced in-plane uniaxial anisotropy increases approximately linearlywith the vicinal angle.