Morphology and magnetization changes upon annealing of Fe/Cu(100): An in situ scanning tunneling microscopy and magneto-optical Kerr effect study

Morphology changes and irreversible reorientation of the easy magnetization axis upon annealing of thin epitaxial fee-iron films frown at 100 K on Cu(100) were studied in situ with scanning tunneling microscopy and the magneto-optical Kerr effect, An irreversible spin reorientation from in-plane to out-of-plane is observed for 6 monolayers thick iron films annealed to 350 K, This change in magnetic anisotropy is accompanied by considerable smoothing of the iron film surface, Annealing to higher temperatures leads to a strong increase of the coercive field by up to a factor of 6. The surfaces of these films are atomically flat and display some scattered needle-like protrusions and dislocation lines. (C) 1997 American Institute of Physics.