Zi Q. Qui
Univ. of California at Berkeley, Dept. of Physics

Most of the magnetic nanostructure research in the last decade was on layered structures. New phenomena are expected from lateral modulation of magnetic thin films. Atomic steps on vicinal surface can provide such kind of lateral modulation at the nanometer scale. We recently carried out research on magnetic thin films grown on (001) vicinal surfaces. In particular, we invented curved substrate to vary the step terrace length continuously. With this approach, we studied several topics in magnetic nanostructure research. In this talk, I will first discuss the relation between the magnetic anisotropy and the lattice symmetry breaking. Then I will discuss how the magnetic interfacial frustration between a ferromagnetic thin film and an antiferromagnetic substrate results in the so-called 90 degree coupling.