Magnetic reorientation and thermal stability in MnAs/GaAs (100) micro patterns driven by size effects

M. Tortarolo , F. Fernandez Baldis , M. Sirena , L. B. Steren , J. Milano , Victor H. Etgens (1) , Mahmoud Eddrief (1) , G. Faini

1 INSP - Institut des Nanosciences de Paris

Size effects and their consequences in the thermal stability of the magnetization of the micro-sized MnAs/GaAs(100) ribbons were studied by magnetic force microscopy. We found out that the orientation in which size is reduced plays a key role in the magnetic configuration and thermal stability of the micro-sized patterns. On the one hand, when reducing the size in the [0001] alpha-MnAs direction, the system shows an improvement in the thermal stability of the remanent magnetization. On the other hand, when the size is reduced in the [11-20] alpha-MnAs direction, the system goes through a magnetic reconfiguration from in-plane magnetized to out-of-plane magnetized, which also improves the thermal stability.

Domaines: Matière Condensée [cond-mat]

M. Tortarolo, F. Fernandez Baldis, M. Sirena, L. B. Steren, J. Milano, et al.. Magnetic reorientation and thermal stability in MnAs/GaAs (100) micro patterns driven by size effects. Journal of Applied Physics, 2012, 112 (1), pp.013915. ⟨10.1063/1.4733698⟩. ⟨hal-01240932⟩