%0 Conference Paper %K optical properties %K anisotropy %K crystal growth %K iron compounds %K Magnetic properties %K Grain boundaries %K Magnetic thin films %K Ferrimagnetic materials %K Crystal microstructure %K Diffusion in solids %K Metallic superlattices %K Garnets %K Magnetooptical devices %K Iron garnet %K Pulsed layer deposition %K Rutherford backscattering %A B.M Simion %A Ramamoorthy Ramesh %A E Marinero %A R.L Pfeffer %A G Thomas %A Garratt-Reed G.W %B Proceedings - Annual Meeting, Microscopy Society of America %D 1994 %G eng %P 898-899 %T Microstructural and magneto-optical characterization of ferrimagnetic multilayered thin-film rare-earth iron garnet heterostructures %X Superlattice heterostructures consisting of alternating single crystalline ferrimagnetic yttrium-iron-garnet (YIG) and bismuth-iron-garnet (BIG) thin film layers, alternating YIG and europium-substituted BIG (EBIG), were deposited on single crystalline (111) paramagnetic gadolinium-gallium-garnet (GGG) substrates. The perpendicular magnetic anisotropy of the YIG/EBIG heterostructures makes this type of materials an extremely viable choice for magneto-optical recording. The novel properties of these layered structures can be linked to several causes such as inter-layer stresses present in the structures, diffusion of the rare-earth species at the layer interfaces, uniformity of layer stoichiometry, layer thickness ratios and layer composition.