Abstract
The present study is a comparison of the resistive and magnetic properties of ultrathin epitaxial Fe3O4 films grown on MgO(0 0 1) and MgAl2O4(0 0 1). Such films on MgO are known to contain anti-phase boundaries, which cause magneto-resistance in these films, an increased resistivity with respect to the bulk and superparamagnetic behaviour for films below 5 nm thickness. Ultrathin films on MgAl2O4 show a very similar behaviour as the resistivity is also increased with respect to the bulk, but is still lower than the resistivity of films grown on MgO. This indicates a larger domain size in the films grown on MgAl2O4. This is supported by the observed magneto-resistance that is larger than for films grown on MgO. Mössbauer spectroscopy analysis of a 1.7nm thick film on MgO indicates that all magnetic moments in the film are fluctuating, whereas for the film on MgAl2O4 a sextet with a parabolic background is observed. This shows that some domains are small enough for the moment to fluctuate while in larger ones, the moments are fixed; this also indicates that the domains in the film on MgAl2O4 are larger than in the film grown on MgO.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 73-76 |
Number of pages | 4 |
Journal | Journal of magnetism and magnetic materials |
Volume | 258-259 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 1 Mar 2003 |
Externally published | Yes |
Event | Second Moscow International Symposium on Magnetism 2001 - Moscow, Russian Federation Duration: 20 Jun 2001 → 24 Jun 2001 Conference number: 2 |
Keywords
- Magnetite
- Magneto-resistance
- Spin polarization
- Spinel
- Superparamagnetism