Optimizing magneto-optical effects in the ferromagnetic semiconductor GaMnAs

A trilayer of the ferromagnetic semiconductor GaMnAs, a SiO2 buffer layer and a piezoelectric ZnO layer, is investigated in view of its use in device implementation to study surface acoustic wave-assisted magnetization switching. The magneto-optical properties: Kerr rotation and ellipticity and magnetic contrast in Kerr microscopy images are investigated as a function of temperature. While the ZnO layer prevents any good quality imaging of magnetic domains, we show that with the SiO2 layer only the polar Kerr rotation and the magnetic contrast are increased by a factor of 2. This result is in good quantitative agreement with calculations using an optical interference model and could be further improved. The detrimental effects of the dielectric layers capping on the Curie temperature and coercive field of the GaMnAs layer can be kept to a reasonable level.