Magnetic and Electronic Structure study of Fe/MgO/Fe/Co Multilayer Stack Deposited by E-Beam Evaporation

TL;DR

This study investigates the magnetic and electronic properties of a multilayer Fe/MgO/Fe/Co stack grown by electron beam evaporation, revealing interface oxidation and metallic characteristics through various spectroscopic techniques.

Contribution

It provides new insights into the interface oxidation states and electronic structure of Fe/MgO/Fe/Co multilayers deposited by e-beam evaporation.

Findings

FeOx formation at Fe/MgO interface detected by TEY spectra.

Fe remains metallic in bulk as shown by TFY spectra.

Cobalt is metallic in both surface and bulk measurements.

Abstract

Present work investigates the magnetic and electronic structure of MgO/Fe/MgO/Fe/Co/Au multilayer stack grown on Si(100) substrates by electron beam evaporation method. X-ray diffraction study depicts polycrystalline nature of the multilayers. Results obtained from vibrating sample magnetometry (VSM) and near-edge X-ray absorption fine structure spectra (NEXAFS) at Fe & Co L- and Mg & O K-edges are applied to understand the magnetic and electronic properties of this stack and its interface properties. While the spectral features of Fe L-edge spectrum recorded by surface sensitive total electron yield (TEY) mode shows the formation of FeOx at the Fe/MgO interface, the bulk sensitive total fluorescence yield (TFY), shows Fe in metallic nature. Co L-edge spectrum reveals the presence of metallic nature of cobalt in both TEY and TFY modes. Above results are well correlated with X-ray reflectometry.