Magnetic anisotropy in antiferromagnetic hexagonal MnTe
Magnetic anisotropy in antiferromagnetic hexagonal MnTe
Kriegner, D.; Reichlova, H.; Grenzer, J.; Schmidt, W.; Ressouche, E.; Godinho, J.; Wagner, T.; Martin, S.; Shick, A.; Volobuev, V.; Springholz, G.; Holy, V.; Wunderlich, J.; Jungwirth, T.; Vyborny, K.
Antiferromagnetic hexagonal MnTe is a promising material for spintronic devices relying on the control of antiferromagnetic domain orientations. Here we report on neutron diffraction, magnetotransport, and magnetometry experiments on semiconducting epitaxial MnTe thin films together with density functional theory (DFT) calculations of the magnetic anisotropies. The easy axes of the magnetic moments within the hexagonal basal plane are determined to be along < 1-100 > directions. The spin-flop transition and concomitant repopulation of domains in strong magnetic fields is observed. Using epitaxially induced strain the onset of the spin-flop transition changes from similar to 2 to similar to 0.5 T for films grown on InP and SrF2 substrates, respectively.
Keywords: MOLECULAR-BEAM EPITAXY; NEUTRON-DIFFRACTION; MANGANESE TELLURIDE; THERMAL-EXPANSION; TEMPERATURE; BEHAVIOR; MEMORY; FILM
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Physical Review B 96(2017)21, 214418
Online First (2017) DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevB.96.214418
Cited 52 times in Scopus
Permalink: https://www.hzdr.de/publications/Publ-26815