Strain-induced magnetic anisotropy in epitaxial Fe3O4/Co3O4 multilayers

Epitaxial multilayers of Fe3O4/Co3O4 were successfully grown on MgO and SrTiO3(001) single crystal substrates using a molecular beam epitaxy apparatus. The multilayers showed a strong in-plane magnetic anisotropy and an increase of coercive field for thin Fe3O4 samples. Multilayered Co3O4 exhibited a significant lattice expansion along the growth direction in order to compensate lattice mismatch at the interface. A small lattice distortion in the Fe3O4 layers might be the origin of the strong anisotropy. (C) 2001 American Institute of Physics.