Abstract

The temperature-driven spin-reorientation transition (SRT) has been investigated in a layer of 2.1 nm Co in Au/Co/Au. We studied the evolution and stability of the in-plane magnetization components in the temperature range from 300 to 90 K by means of polarized neutron reflectometry (PNR) and Co L-edge X-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD) measurements. The PNR measurement provides evidence for the occurrence of a SRT in this temperature range. XMCD can be used as a vector magnetometer that yields both the in- and out-of-plane magnetization components per Co atom. Combining the results of both techniques (PNR and XMCD) allows separating the orbital and spin magnetic moments using magneto-optical sum rules. We observed that already above the SRT the in-plane orbital moment component changes significantly stronger than the spin component.

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