Observation of strong magnetic anisotropy in zinc-blende CrTe thin films

Abstract

We report the growth of zinc-blende CrTe thin films with a nominal thickness of 5 nm by low-temperature molecular-beam epitaxy. Reflection high-energy electron diffraction patterns, atomic force microscopy and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy analyses established that a quasi-two-dimensional layer-by-layer growth mode is achieved. We observe a strong magnetic anisotropy in the film with an easy axis along the [0 0 1] direction. The uniaxial (KU) and cubic (KC) anisotropy constants are obtained through the fitting of the hard axes along the [0 1 1] and directions of the magnetization curves. A Curie temperature of 100 K is obtained from the temperature-dependent remanent-magnetization measurement. © 2008 IOP Publishing Ltd.