Electrons in solids
determine most of the materials properties.
An electron consists of charge
and spin. While the electron charge determines the electronic
properties, the alignment of electron spins
generates magnetism. It is generally
believed that a combination of the electron spin
and charge freedoms in solids has a
potential of creating new generation spintronics technology.
The removal of the spin
degeneracy in magnetic materials leads to an inherent spin-charge
correlation. Therefore magnetic
nanostructures offer a great opportunity for tailoring the spin and charge
properties at the nanometer scale. In
fact, research on magnetic nanostructures has been developed rapidly in the last
two decades with many exciting discoveries such as oscillatory interlayer
coupling and giant magneto resistance (GMR).
To develop and realize the
scientific and technological potentials of the magnetic nanostructures, it is important
to understand: how do the electron spins
behave at the nanometer scale? and how
to create new types of nanostructures with desired properties? Answering
these questions is the ultimate goal of our research.
Because of the short-ranged
magnetic exchange interaction, nanometer sets a critical length scale below
which a magnetic system behaves very differently. Thus it is very important to fabricate and
characterize magnetic nanostructures at the atomic level. We use state-of-the-art technique of
Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE) to grow high quality single crystal films with a
thickness control at the atomic scale.
We currently use the following techniques in our experiments.
·
Low Energy Electron Diffraction (LEED)
·
Reflection High Energy Electron Diffraction (RHEED)
·
Scanning Tunneling Microscopy (STM)
·
Surface Magneto-Optic Kerr Effect (SMOKE)
·
Angle-Resolved Photoemission Spectroscopy (ARPES)
·
Photoemission Electron Microscope (PEEM)
·
Spin Polarized Low Energy Electron Microscopy
(SPLEEM)
· Quantum Well States
· Stripe Phase of Two Dimensional Magnetism
· Lateral Modulation
· Metastable Phases
