Determination of the Fe magnetic anisotropies and the CoO frozen spins in epitaxial CoO/Fe/Ag(001)

CoO/Fe/Ag(001) films were grown epitaxially and studied by X-ray Magnetic Circular Dichroism (XMCD) and X-ray Magnetic Linear Dichroism (XMLD). After field cooling along the Fe[100] axis to 80 K, exchange bias, uniaxial anisotropy, and 4-fold anisotropy of the films were determined by hysteresis loop and XMCD measurements by rotating the Fe magnetization within the film plane. The CoO frozen spins were determined by XMLD measurement as a function of CoO thickness. We find that among the exchange bias, uniaxial anisotropy, and 4-fold anisotropy, only the uniaxial magnetic anisotropy follows thickness dependence of the CoO frozen spins.