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Magnetic properties

Probing buried interfaces

Nature Nanotechnology volume 8, pages 803–805 (2013)Cite this article

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The strength of the magnetic exchange interaction at the buried interface between a magnetic film and a substrate can be measured using spin-polarized electrons scattered from the top surface of the film.

The properties of a magnetic thin film at the interface with a substrate can be very different to the properties of the rest of the film due to electronic hybridization. In planar nanostructures these interfacial properties determine, to a large extent, the overall behaviour of the system, and therefore it is important to be able to probe them experimentally. However, existing spectroscopic tools cannot provide such information. Writing in Nature Nanotechnology, Khalil Zakeri and colleagues at the Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics in Halle, University of Leipzig, University College London and Martin-Luther-Universitaet at Halle-Wittenberg have now shown that spin-polarized electrons can be used to probe fundamental magnetic interactions at buried interfaces between an ultrathin ferromagnetic film and the underlying substrate1.

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Figure 1: Magnons in an ultrathin ferromagnetic film grown on a substrate can be excited by spin-polarized electrons.

References

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Andrei Slavin is in the Department of Physics, Oakland University, 2200 South Squirrel Road, Rochester, Michigan 48309, USA,

    Andrei Slavin

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  1. Andrei Slavin
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Correspondence to Andrei Slavin.

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Slavin, A. Probing buried interfaces. Nature Nanotech 8, 803–805 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2013.223

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2013.223

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