Memory of frozen and rotatable antiferromagnetic spins in epitaxial CoO (111)/Fe and NiO(111)/Fe bilayers

We combined X-ray magnetic linear and circular dichroism together with magnetooptic Kerr effect measurements in order to follow the magnetic properties of epitaxial CoO(1 1 1)/Fe(1 1 0) and NiO(1 1 1)/Fe(1 1 0) bilayers. We find that in both studied cases ferromagnetic sublayer plays a dominant role and determines the magnetic state of the neighboring antiferromagnet, however different interaction scenarios are observed. In CoO/Fe bilayers the antiferromagnetic spins are frozen and their orientation is imprinted by magnetization of Fe layer as the system passes the Ne ' el temperature of CoO. For NiO/Fe bilayers, the antiferromagnetic spins are rotatable and always follow the reorientation of Fe magnetization that can be controlled by external magnetic field or via the temperature and thickness driven spin reorientation transition in Fe(1 1 0).

Automated summary

We investigated the magnetic properties of epitaxial CoO(111)/Fe(110) and NiO(111)/Fe(110) bilayers by combining X-ray magnetic linear and circular dichroism with magnetooptic Kerr effect measurements. Our results show that in both cases, the ferromagnetic sublayer plays a dominant role and determines the magnetic state of the neighboring antiferromagnet, although different interaction scenarios are observed. In CoO/Fe bilayers, the antiferromagnetic spins are frozen and their orientation is imprinted by the magnetization of the Fe layer. On the other hand, in NiO/Fe bilayers, the antiferromagnetic spins are rotatable and always follow the reorientation of the Fe magnetization.