STM study of large magnetic anisotropy in single Fe atoms on atomically-flat MgO substrate

2016 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 15K13357
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Thin film/Surface and interfacial physical properties
• Research Institution: Chiba University
• Principal Investigator: Yamada Toyokazu 千葉大学, 大学院融合科学研究科, 准教授 (10383548)
• Project Period (FY): 2015-04-01 – 2017-03-31
• Keywords: スピントロニクス / 磁気異方性 / STM

Outline of Final Research Achievements

We have studied magnetic anisotropy of single Fe atoms on MgO substrate by means of homu-built UHV-STM setup. Fe(001)-whisker was used as a substrate. To prevent surface/interface roughness, Fe(001) surface was first coated by an ordered one monolayer (1x1) oxygen film by introducing 1L oxygen at 300 K with subsequent annealing at 850 K. 1 ML Mg was deposited on the Fe(001)-p(1x1)O, and with subsequent oxidization and annealing, we succeeded to obtain an atomically-flat MgO single monolayer film with a gap of ~6 eV. One monolayer Fe film deposited on this MgO film showed LDOS peaks around the Fermi energy (no gap). Next, we tried to deposit single Fe atoms on the MgO substrate. However, suddenly pressure in the STM chamber became bad. We spent almost six months to find and fix problems, Thus, we still need time to measure magnetic anisotropy of single Fe atoms on the MgO films.

Free Research Field

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