METHOD FOR MEASURING EXCHANGE INTERACTION AND METHOD FOR EVALUATING MAGNETIC CHARACTERISTIC USING EXCHANGE INTERACTION

摘要

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a method by which the magnetic characteristics of a magnetic recording medium and the surface of a material can be evaluated accurately at atomic resolution without receiving any influence even when a probe is brought nearer to the objects. SOLUTION: In order to measure the exchange interaction which acts between a sample 21 and a probe 24 attached to an oscillating cantilever 23, the sample 21 and probe 24 are oppositely faced to each other in a proximity area from the point where the wave functions of the conduction electrons of the sample 21 and probe 24 start to overlap each other to the point where the wave functions of the localized electrons of the sample 21 and probe 24 hardly overlap each other and the force which acts on the probe 24 is measured as the oscillation disturbance of the cantilever 23 in both cases where the directions of magnetization of the sample 21 and probe 24 are parallel and antiparallel to each other by means of a laser beam 28, a reflecting member 27, and a position detector 29. Then the exchange interaction is found as the difference between the two measured values. Based on the exchange interaction the magnetic characteristic of the sample 21 is evaluated at atomic resolution.