Tunable Magnetic Properties of Transition Metal Compounds

Abstract: The magnetic properties of transition metal compounds have been studied using SQUID-magnetometry, magnetic force microscopy and Lorentz transmission electron microscopy. New magnetic materials have been found and their magnetic properties have been determined. How the magnetic properties of a material can be changed through e.g. chemical substitution of magnetic and nonmagnetic atoms and shape and size effects have also been studied. Three different sets of samples have been investigated: three new Mn-compounds, two substitution series of layered magnetic structures and ferromagnetic micronsized thin film elements.The three Mn-compounds, Mn3IrSi, IrMnSi and Mn8Pd15Si7, show different magnetic ordering. Mn3IrSi orders 'antiferromagnetically' at 210 K. IrMnSi forms a double cycloidal spin spiral below 460 K. Mn8Pd15Si7 only shows short-range magnetic ordering.Substituting Se with S in TlCo2Se2-xSx changes the magnetic order from a spin spiral to a colinear ferromagnet for a composition of x=1.75. An intermediate region exists where the compound is neither a pure ferromagnet, nor purely a spin spiral, as evidenced by the magnetization versus field measurements for the x=1.3 and 1.5 samples. This is also seen in the temperature dependent susceptibility measurements. For the TlCu2-xFexSe2 compounds it was found that the ordering temperature and saturation magnetic moment per Fe-atom changed with composition x.Ferromagnetic micronsized thin film elements in permalloy, Fe20Ni80, and epitaxial Fe/Co multilayers were studied. For the Fe/Co multilayer thin film elements it was found that it is possible to change the magnetization reversal process, by aligning the easy shape anisotropy axis with either the easy or the hard magnetocrystalline anisotropy axis. In the permalloy elements the effect of inter-elemental distance was found to determine the interval of fields where multidomain states were stable, so that for shorter inter-elemental distances multidomain states were stable for a shorter interval of fields. The domain structure of permalloy elements in rotating magnetic fields was also studied. Higher applied fields led to a broader interval of angles in which saturated states were stable.