Correlation of magnetism and structure for ultra thin Au/Co/Au films: Evidence for magnetoelastic effects

The spin-reorientation transition of thin Au/Co/Au films, grown in-situ on W(110), is studied in XMCD and EXAFS experiments. At 300 K, for in-situ grown Co on a Au(111) film, the dominant easy magnetization direction was found to be in the surface plane, for the uncapped Co/Au bilayers. This is a novel observation, in terms of easy magnetization direction for low thickness Co on Au. After capping with Au, a sizeable out-of-plane magnetization is observed below a thickness of four atomic Co layers. When the spin-reorientation transition occurs because of Au capping, a 5 A thin Co layer undergoes structural changes of lattice parameters Δa/a = -1.2 % and Δc/c = +6.6 %. The observation of structural changes which accompany the spin reorientation transition, contradicts previous work on Co/Au(111), and allows to quantify the magnetoelastic energy contribution, connected with the presence of the Co/Au interface.