FMR study of the anisotropic properties of an epitaxial Fe3Si film on a Si(111) vicinal surface

Abstract

The anisotropic characteristics of an iron silicide (Fe₃Si) epitaxial thin magnetic film grown on a Si(111) silicon vicinal surface with a misorientation angle of 0.14° have been measured by the ferromagnetic resonance method. It has been shown that the polar and azimuth misorientation angles of the crystallographic plane of the substrate can be determined simultaneously from the angular dependences of the ferromagnetic resonance field of the epitaxial film. The effective saturation magnetization of the film M_eff = 1105 G and the constant of the cubic magnetocrystalline anisotropy K₄ = 1.15 × 10⁵ erg/cm³ have been determined. The misorientation of the substrate plane leads to the formation of steps on the film surface and, as a result, to the appearance of uniaxial magnetic anisotropy of the magnetic dipole nature with the constant K₂ = 796 erg/cm³. Small unidirectional magnetic anisotropy (K₁ = 163 erg/cm³), which may be associated with symmetry breaking on the steps of the film and is due to the Dzyaloshinskii–Moriya interaction, has been detected.