Magnetic anisotropy of NiO epitaxial thin films on Fe(001)

We report about very high-quality epitaxial NiO films grown on a Fe(0 0 1) passivated surface. X-ray magnetic linear dichroism at the Ni L2 absorption edge has been applied to investigate the magnetic anisotropy in the NiO layer. We find that very thin NiO films (7-20 atomic layers) develop an in-plane uniaxial magnetic anisotropy, whose axis is found to be perpendicular to the Fe substrate magnetization View the MathML source. This behaviour is in contrast with what observed in the specular Fe/NiO(0 0 1) interface, where the coupling is parallel.