Bls Studies of Exchange Coupling in The Iron Whisker/Cr/Fe System

Brillouin light scattering (BLS) and magneto-optic Kerr effect have been carried out on a series of specimens consisting of a Fe(001) whisker substrate upon which thin Cr(001) and Fe(001) layers have been deposited by means of molecular beam epitaxy in ultrahigh vacuum. The Fe film was 20 monolayers (ML) thick, and the Cr(001) films were grown having various thicknesses. It is demonstrated that BLS thin film frequencies measured in the saturated magnetic state with the thin film magnetization parallel with the applied magnetic field can be used to obtain the exchange coupling strength between the thin film and whisker magnetizations both for antiferromagnetic coupling and for ferromagnetic coupling, provided that the ferromagnetic coupling is not too strong. It is also shown that the coupling strength is extremely sensitive to the quality of the chromium growth: a small deterioration in the growth conditions has been found to reduce the exchange coupling by nearly a factor of two.