Professor Stephen Blundell

Abstract:

A novel combination of electron- and ion-beam lithography has been used to prepare Fe gratings with wire widths of 0.5 μm and wire separations in the range 0.5-4 μm from an Fe/GaAs (001) film of thickness 25 nm. With an in-plane magnetic field applied perpendicular to the length of the wires, a harder magnetisation loop is observed using the magneto-optic Kerr effect (MOKE), compared with that observed in the unprocessed film. We observe a strong effect in the magnetoresistance (MR) when the magnetic field is applied transverse to the wires. It is believed that this effect originates from the highly non-uniform demagnetising field in each wire of the grating. These results demonstrate that the combination of MOKE and MR measurements can provide important information about the magnetisation reversal processes in magnetic gratings and can be used to understand the effect of shape anisotropy on magnetic properties. © 1994.

Abstract:

We report the observation of a magnetic transition at around 90 mK in the nitronyl nitroxide radical system para-pyridyl nitronyl nitroxide (p-PYNN) in zero applied field using the muon-spin rotation (μSR) technique. © 1994.

Abstract:

We have used polarised neutron reflection to directly determine the vector orientation of the individual Fe layer average magnetisations in an antiferromagnetically coupled 50 ÅFe/15 ÅCr/50 ÅFe sandwich structure prepared by sputtering. The spin dependent neutron wave in the multilayer structure is represented by a two component spinor and the resulting reflected intensity is found to be highly sensitive to variations in the orientations of the layer-dependent magnetisation vectors, permitting the preferred orientation of the average magnetisation in each Fe layer to be studied. The saturated state is found to correspond to a uniform ferromagnetic alignment of the Fe layer magnetisations. At low field, we are able to assess the degree to which the magnetic alignment is fully antiparallel, and conclude that our results are consistent with the development of a multidomain structure. © 1993.