Temperature-Induced Increase of Spin Spiral Periods

Aurore Finco, Levente Rózsa, Pin-Jui Hsu, André Kubetzka, Elena Vedmedenko, Kirsten von Bergmann, and Roland Wiesendanger
Phys. Rev. Lett. 119, 037202 – Published 18 July 2017
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Abstract

Spin-polarized scanning tunneling microscopy investigations reveal a significant increase of the magnetic period of spin spirals in three-atomic-layer-thick Fe films on Ir(111), from about 4 nm at 8 K to about 65 nm at room temperature. We attribute this considerable influence of temperature on the magnetic length scale of noncollinear spin states to different exchange interaction coefficients in the different Fe layers. We thus propose a classical spin model that reproduces the experimental observations and in which the crucial feature is the presence of magnetically coupled atomic layers with different interaction strengths. This model might also apply for many other systems, especially magnetic multilayers.

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  • Received 31 March 2017

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.119.037202

© 2017 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Condensed Matter, Materials & Applied Physics

Authors & Affiliations

Aurore Finco1,*, Levente Rózsa1,2, Pin-Jui Hsu1, André Kubetzka1, Elena Vedmedenko1, Kirsten von Bergmann1, and Roland Wiesendanger1

  • 1Department of Physics, University of Hamburg, D-20355 Hamburg, Germany
  • 2Institute for Solid State Physics and Optics, Wigner Research Centre for Physics, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, P.O. Box 49, H-1525 Budapest, Hungary

  • *aurore.finco@physnet.uni-hamburg.de

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Issue

Vol. 119, Iss. 3 — 21 July 2017

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