Exchange spring driven spin flop transition in ErFe2/YFe2 multilayers

Magnetization loops for (110) ErFe2/YFe2 multilayer films grown by molecular beam epitaxy are presented and discussed. The direction of easy magnetization for the Er layers is out of plane, near a < 111 >-type crystal axis. For fields applied along the (110) crystal growth axis, out-of-plane magnetic exchange springs are set up in the magnetically soft YFe2 layers. For multilayer films that display negative coercivity at low temperatures, there is a crossover temperature above which the coercivity becomes positive, with additional transitions at high fields. These features are interpreted using micromagnetic modeling. At sufficiently high fields, applied perpendicular to the multilayer film plane, the energy is minimized by an exchange spring driven multilayer spin flop. In this state, the average magnetization of the ErFe2 layers switches into a nominally hard in-plane < 111 > axis, perpendicular to the applied field. (c) 2006 American Institute of Physics.