Fases magnéticas de sistemas nanoestruturados de terras-raras

There is presently a worldwide interest in artificial magnetic systems which guide research activities in universities and companies. Thin films and multilayers have a central role, revealing new magnetic phases which often lead to breakthroughs and new technology standards, never thought otherwise. Surface and confinement effects cause large impact in the magnetic phases of magnetic materials with bulk spatially periodic patterns. New magnetic phases are expected to form in thin film thicknesses comparable to the length of the intrinsic bulk magnetic unit cell. Helimagnetic materials are prototypes in this respect, since the bulk magnetic phases consist in periodic patterns with the length of the helical pitch. In this thesis we study the magnetic phases of thin rare-earth films, with surfaces oriented along the (002) direction. The thesis includes the investigation of the magnetic phases of thin Dy and Ho films, as well as the thermal hysteresis cycles of Dy thin films. The investigation of the thermal hysteresis cycles of thin Dy films has been done in collaboration with the Laboratory of Magnetic Materials of the University of Texas, at Arlington. The theoretical modeling is based on a self-consistent theory developed by the Group of Magnetism of UFRN. Contributions from the first and second neighbors exchange energy, from the anisotropy energy and the Zeeman energy are calculated in a set of nonequivalent magnetic ions, and the equilibrium magnetic phases, from the Curie temperature up to the Nèel temperature, are determined in a self-consistent manner, resulting in a vanishing torque in the magnetic ions at all planes across the thin film. Our results reproduce the known isothermal and iso-field curves of bulk Dy and Ho, and the known spin-slip phases of Ho, and indicate that: (i) the confinement in thin films leads to a new magnetic phase, with alternate helicity, which leads to the measured thermal hysteresis of Dy ultrathin films, with thicknesses ranging from 4 nm to 16 nm; (ii) thin Dy films have anisotropy dominated surface lock-in phases, with alignment of surface spins along the anisotropy easy axis directions, similar to the known spin-slip phases of Ho ( which form in the bulk and are commensurate to the crystal lattice); and (iii) the confinement in thin films change considerably the spin-slip patterns of Ho.

Excitações elementares em super-redes quasiperiódicas com simetria espelho

In this thesis, we investigated the magnonic and photonic structures that exhibit the so-called deterministic disorder. Speci cally, we studied the effects of the quasiperiodicity, associated with an internal structural symmetry, called mirror symmetry, on the spectra of photonics and magnonics multilayer. The quasiperiodicity is introduced when stacked layers following the so-called substitutional sequences. The three sequences used here were the Fibonacci sequence, Thue-Morse and double-period, all with mirror symmetry. Aiming to study the propagation of light waves in multilayer photonic, and spin waves propagation in multilayer magnonic, we use a theoretical model based on transfer matrix treatment. For the propagation of light waves, we present numerical results that show that the quasiperiodicity associated with a mirror symmetry greatly increases the intensity of transmission and the transmission spectra exhibit a pro le self-similar. The return map plotted for this system show that the presence of internal symmetry does not alter the pattern of Fibonacci maps when compared with the case without symmetry. But when comparing the maps of Thue-Morse and double-time sequences with their case without the symmetry mirror, is evident the change in the pro le of the maps. For magnetic multilayers, we work with two di erent systems, multilayer composed of a metamagnetic material and a non-magnetic material, and multilayers composed of two cubic Heisenberg ferromagnets. In the rst case, our calculations are carried out in the magnetostatic regime and calculate the dispersion relation of spin waves for the metamgnetic material considered FeBr2. We show the e ect of mirror symmetry in the spectra of spin waves, and made the analysis of the location of bulk bands and the scaling laws between the full width of the bands allowed and the number of layers of unit cell. Finally, we calculate the transmission spectra of spin waves in quasiperiodic multilayers consisting of Heisenberg ferromagnets. The transmission spectra exhibit self-similar patterns, with regions of scaling well-de ned in frequency and the return maps indicates only dependence of the particular sequence used in the construction of the multilayer

Multicamadas Ferromagnéticas Nanométricas Periódicas e Quasiperiódicas

We present a study of nanostructured magnetic multilayer systems in order to syn- thesize and analyze the properties of periodic and quasiperiodic structures. This work evolved from the deployment and improvement of the sputtering technique in our labora- tories, through development of a methodology to synthesize single crystal ultrathin Fe (100) films, to the final goal of growing periodic and quasiperiodic Fe/Cr multilayers and investi- gating bilinear and biquadratic exchange coupling between ferromagnetic layer dependence for each generation. Initially we systematically studied the related effects between deposition parameters and the magnetic properties of ultrathin Fe films, grown by DC magnetron sput- tering on MgO(100) substrates. We modified deposition temperature and film thickness, in order to improve production and reproduction of nanostructured monocrystalline Fe films. For this set of samples we measured MOKE, FMR, AFM and XPS, with the aim of investi- gating their magnocrystalline and structural properties. From the magnetic viewpoint, the MOKE and FMR results showed an increase in magnetocrystalline anisotropy due to in- creased temperature. AFM measurements provided information about thickness and surface roughness, whereas XPS results were used to analyze film purity. The best set of parame- ters was used in the next stage: investigation of the structural effect on magnetic multilayer properties. In this stage multilayers composed of interspersed Fe and Cr films are deposited, following the Fibonacci periodic and quasiperiodic growth sequence on MgO (100) substrates. The behavior of MOKE and FMR curves exhibit bilinear and biquadratic exchange coupling between the ferromagnetic layers. By computationally adjusting magnetization curves, it was possible to determine the nature and intensity of the interaction between adjacent Fe layers. After finding the global minimum of magnetic energy, we used the equilibrium an- gles to obtain magnetization and magnetoresistance curves. The results observed over the course of this study demonstrate the efficiency and versatility of the sputtering technique in the synthesis of ultrathin films and high-quality multilayers. This allows the deposition of magnetic nanostructures with well-defined magnetization and magnetoresistance parameters and possible technological applications

Ondas de spin em nanofilmes nagnéticos acoplados quasiperiodicamente

We studied the spin waves modes that can propagate in magnetic multilayers composed of ferromagnetic metallic films in the nanometer scale. The ferromagnetic films (iron) are separated and coupled through the nonmagnetic spacer films (chromium). The films that make up the multilayer are stacked in a quasiperiodic pattern, following the Fibonacci and double period sequences. We used a phenomenological theory taking into account: the Zeeman energy (between the ferromagnetic films and the external magnetic field), the energy of the magneto-crystalline anisotropy (present in the ferromagnetic films), the energy of the bilinear and biquadratic couplings (between the ferromagnetic films) and the energy of the dipole-dipole interaction (between the ferromagnetic films), to describe the system. The total magnetic energy of the system is numerically minimized and the equilibrium angles of the magnetization of each ferromagnetic film are determined. We solved the equation of motion of the multilayer to find the dispersion relation for the system and, as a consequence, the spin waves modes frequencies. Our theoretical results show that, in the case of trilayers (Fe/Cr/Fe), our model reproduces with excellent agreement experimental results of Brillouin light scattering, known from the literature, by adjusting the physical parameters of the nanofilms. Furthermore, we generalize the model to N ferromagnetic layers which allowed us to determine how complex these systems become when we increase the number of components. It is worth noting that our theoretical calculations generalize all the results known from the literature