High Rotatable Magnetic Anisotropy in MnBi Thin Films

The variations of the structural and magnetic properties of Bi/Mn/Bi and Mn/Bi/Mn trilayer film systems of equiatomic composition in the process of vacuum annealing are studied. The annealing of Bi/Mn/Bi films at a temperature of 270 degrees C for an hour results in the synthesis of the well-studied highly oriented low-temperature LT-MnBi(001) phase with the perpendicular magnetic anisotropy K-u similar to 1.1 x 10(7) erg/cm(3) and coercivity H-C similar to 1.5 kOe. In contrast to Bi/Mn/Bi, polycrystalline LT-MnBi nanoclusters are formed in Mn/Bi/Mn films under the same annealing conditions. A high rotatable magnetic anisotropy exceeding the shape anisotropy is detected in the films under consideration: the easy axis of anisotropy with the inclusion of the delay angle in magnetic fields above the coercivity H > H-C = 9.0 kOe can be oriented in any spatial direction. It is shown that the nature of rotatable magnetic anisotropy is due to the structural coexistence of epitaxially coupled LT-MnBi and QHTP-Mn1.08Bi phases. The reported experimental results indicate the existence of a new class of ferromagnetic film media with the spatially tunable easy axis.