The in-plane magnetic anisotropy of Fe films epitaxially grown on GaAs(001), in addition to a thickness-dependent four-fold contribution had a uniaxial component originating from the Fe/GaAs interface. This was observed in several previous investigations. The orientation of the uniaxial easy axis, however, was found to be along the [110] direction in most studies, but also an e.a. parallel to [¯110] was reported in a few cases. It was suggested that different reconstructions of the GaAs surface prior to Fe deposition could be responsible for this discrepancy. In the present contribution, it was shown that in Fe(001) films grown by molecular-beam epitaxy on Ga-rich GaAs(001) surfaces at room temperature the uniaxial anisotropy always had its easy axis along [110] with practically the same magnitude. In particular, the surface reconstruction of the GaAs substrate - either (4 x 2) or (2 x 6) - had no effect upon the resulting uniaxial magnetic anisotropy. This, together with results related to the phase transition of Fe/GaAs(001), suggested that the same atomic configuration was formed at the Fe/GaAs(001) interface in both cases; connected with the segregation of As (and Ga) to the surface.

Epitaxial Fe Films on GaAs(001) - Does the Substrate Surface Reconstruction Affect the Uniaxial Magnetic Anisotropy? R.Moosbühler, F.Bensch, M.Dumm, G.Bayreuther: Journal of Applied Physics, 2002, 91[10], 8757