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About
The applet in the adjoining web page calculates the Ellipticity and Rotation of light reflected from a magnetic surface using the formalism developed by Zak et al. . In addition this applet plots the results as a function of the variation in one set of parameters (chosen by the user which default to angle of incidence)
For a reference see:
J. Zak, E. R. Moog, C. Liu, and S. D. Bader, Physical Review B, Vol. 43 p6423 (1991) Also see Errata ""
Layer Construction
The construction of a magnetic multilayer film begins with the "Film Construction" card (seen on the upper tabs).
Layers
In the panel each layer of the multilayer is represented by a "Card" with the choice of layers (cards) seen in the lower tabs where the substrate is the bottom most part of the layer and each successive layer is labeled "layer 1" to "layer N".
The Material properties of each layer are modified by the appropriate selection boxes contained within the card and include:
1) The layer thickness , d. (given in units of nanometers);
2) The angle of the in-plane magnetic vector Gamma (0->Transverse, 90->longitudinal);
3) The angle of the out-of-plane magnetic vector Phi (0->polar, 90-> in-plane).
(In a nonmagnetic layer the angles are of course ignored.)
The indices of refraction for each layer are chosen from the pop-up menu item from a selection of know materials properties (including Fe, Au, Co etc.). This data includes the real and imaginary component of the index of refraction. In addition the "off-diagonal" or magnetic terms fro the index of refraction are contained in this data
Layers are added and removed via button on the lower right-hand side of the window. At the present time there is no hard limit to the number of layers which can be added, so feel free to construct as complicated (or simple) a structure as seems fitting.
Currently there is no user interface for including repeated structures from the front panel. Even though the calculational code contains such capabilities. Perhaps in a future improvement this capability will be added.
Incident Angle and Photon Energy
The angle of incidence and energy of incident light are chosen in fields beneath the layer selection area.
Plotting results
Next to each of the variables is a button indicating which parameter is to be varied for the plot. By default the angle of incidence is chosen. When chosen, the text fields to the right of the parameter will be enabled and permit the entering of the start and stop ranges of the variables. This is used by the applet to determine the range of data to be calculated for the plots.
When you are satisfied with your layer construction and the selection of the parameter to be varied is complete, press the "Plot Results" button. The applet will then calculate the Ellipticity and Rotation for the S and P polarizations of incident light and display the results in four separate (and labeled) plots.
(Note that on some browsers the plots will obscure the layer construction window and all four plots will reside on top of one another. To view each simply drag the upper window slightly and select the window beneath.)
Obtaining the Data
The numerical results of the calculation can be obtained by clicking on the tab to the "Data Card". The data is in a text format and can be selected and copied (Mac. Command-C, Windows- Cntl-C), then can be pasted in to your favorite text editor and saved. The format of the data is tab delimited columns and newline delimited rows. Where the first column is the variable which was varied for the plots and the successive columns are the data. This is labeled in the first row of the data.
In a similar fashion the data used for the indices of refraction can be view by going to the Material Card and selecting the desired element.
At present there is no way for a user to input a different set of data. Perhaps in a future version this capability will be added. For now simply email John Mattson with a text file with appropriate data in the same format as we use (or at least similar) and it can be incorporated in the applet.
Browser Compatibility
To be able to view and use this applet your browser must be Java 1.1.5 compliant. At this time only the following browsers are known to work with this applet
Macintosh
Applet Runner 2.0 (however this "about" page will not be seen by this application.
Internet Explorer 4.5
(unfortunately the Macintosh version of Netscape Communicator has it own JVM and does not properly work with this applet)
Windows
Netscape Communicator 4.5
Internet Explorer 4.0
Contact us
To report bugs / Request new features or obtain more information contact either
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