Origin of magnetically dead layers in spinel ferrites FeO grown on AlO; Effects of postdeposition annealing studied by XMCD

野中 洋亮*; 若林 勇希*; 芝田 悟朗; 坂本 祥哉*; 池田 啓祐*; Chi, Z.*; Wan, Y.*; 鈴木 雅弘*; 田中 新*; 田中 雅明*; et al.

Physical Review Materials (Internet), 7(4), p.044413_1 - 044413_10, 2023/04

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevMaterials.7.044413

We study the electronic and magnetic states of as-grown and annealed FeO(111)/AlO3(111) (Co, Ni) thin films with various thicknesses grown on Si(111) substrates with the -AlO(111)buffer layers by using X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) and X-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD), to investigate magnetically dead layers in these films. Although the magnetically dead layers in the as-grown samples are formed near the interface with the AlO buffer layer, we reveal that ferrimagnetic order is partially recovered by postdeposition annealing at 973 K for 48 hours in air. By analyzing the line shapes of the XAS and XMCD spectra, we conclude that, in the dead layers, there are a significant number of vacancies at the sites of the spinel structure, which may be the microscopic origin of the degraded ferrimagnetic order in the FeO thin films.