FMR in evaporated single and multilayer thin Fe films

Abstract

We have used ferromagnetic resonance (FMR) at 33 GHz to study the properties of a number of evaporated thin Fe film systems. Values for effective anisotropy field HKeff , g value, and exchange constant A were derived. For Fe on glass, ‖HKeff ‖ was found to increase with increasing thickness. These changes were attributed to stress which decreased with film thickness. The presence of a Cu or a Ti underlayer did not seem to affect HKeff for films grown at room temperature. However, Fe/Ti/glass films made at higher substrate temperatures, Ts, did show an increase in ‖HKeff ‖. The appearance of a spin-wave mode in the Fe films enables us to compute the exchange constant A for Fe, A=(2.12±0.14)×10−6 ergs cm−1. The coupling between two thin Fe films through an intervening Cu layer was investigated. A model predicting the number and position of the peaks in the spectrum as a function of coupling is presented. From experiment it was observed that the coupling remains almost constant through the 50–5-nm Cu thickness range but rises sharply at 2-nm Cu thickness.