Imaging the antiparallel magnetic alignment of adjacent Fe and MnAs thin films
Résumé
The magnetic coupling between iron and -MnAs in the epitaxial system Fe/MnAs/GaAs(001) has been studied at the submicron scale, using element-selective x-ray photoemission electron microscopy. At room temperature, MnAs layers display ridges and grooves, alternating (magnetic) and (nonmagnetic) phases. The self-organized microstructure of MnAs and the stray fields that it generates govern the local alignment between the Fe and -MnAs magnetization directions, which is mostly antiparallel with a marked dependence upon the magnetic domain size