PERPENDICULAR MAGNETIC-ANISOTROPY AND STRONG MAGNETOOPTIC PROPERTIES OF SRRUO3 EPITAXIAL-FILMS

Epitaxial films of the ferromagnetic perovskite SrRuO3 were measured with a bulk magnetometer and with a local magneto-optic Sagnac interferometer in transmission and in reflection. We find a magnetic easy axis perpendicular to the films, and for saturated remanent magnetization along this direction the Faraday rotation and the Kerr rotation at λ=840 nm are about 0.75×105 deg/cm and 0.85°, respectively. The temperature dependence of the remanent magnetization in the low temperature limit is dominated by spin-wave excitations, yielding a notable decrease with T3/2. Using Sagnac-Kerr scanning and transmission electron microscopy imaging we correlate the coercivity with the grain size.© 1995 American Institute of Physics.