Neutron scattering studies of magnetic semiconducting superlattices

• Main Author: Goldman, Keith Isaac
• Other Authors: Giebultowicz, Tomasz
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2012
• Subjects: Magnetic superconductors; Superlattices as materials; Tellurides
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1957/33805

Neutron diffraction experiments on europium telluride/lead telluride super-lattice systems reveal pronounced correlations between the antiferromagnetic EuTe layers. The results from an assortment of varying experimental conditions (applied magnetic field, temperature, etc.) and their relevance to the physical mechanism underlying this striking phenomena are discussed. Stochastic computer simulations are compared to this real data to examine the effects of varying the neutron coherence length and the amount of correlations in the model sample. There are rising theoretical efforts to determine the physical mechanism causing the observed correlations and a laconic overview of current theories in interlayer coupling is given herein. The investigated structures do not exhibit perfect correlations between the magnetic layers but most samples clearly show correlation effects. The description of these partial correlations, characterized by an order parameter p, is examined and a straightforward method for determining p is derived. === Graduation date: 1998