Correspondence of Optical Anisotropy to Magnetic Anisotropy in Iron Films

Abstract

The differences between optical constants for the directions perpendicular and parallel to the incidence plane, Δn and Δk were measured in iron films deposited at oblique incidence and their correspondences to the anisotropy field H_k were investigated. The difference Δn occasionally has the opposite sign to H_k and its dependence on the film thickness is different from that of H_k. On the other hand, the sign and the dependence of Δk are the same with Hk. Both the correspondences were explained qualitatively on the assumption of the anisotropic packing of crystallites.