Structural changes induced spin-reorientation of ultrathin Mn films grown on Ag(001)

The strained body centered tetragonal (bct) Mn ultrathin film from lattice parameter a=2.89 Å to lattice value of 2.73 Å induces anti-ferromagnetic behavior between Mn layers. The magnetic easy axis of Mn film was demonstrated theoretically to switch from the in-plane to out-of-plane by magneto-optical Kerr effect investigation. By including spin-orbit coupling in full potential linearized augmented plane waves and linearized muffin-tin orbitals methods, manganese ultrathin film displays different magnetic behaviors and the spin-reorientation transition is shown to be correlated to these structural changes. The calculated magnetic moment of manganese planes are enhanced and reach a value of ~4.02 μB. The polar magneto-optical Kerr effect is calculated for a photon energy range extended to 15 eV. It shows a pronounced peak in visible light.