Switching behavior and its strain dependence in epitaxial CrO/sub 2/ thin films

Chromium dioxide thin films grown epitaxially on TiO/sub 2/ substrates exhibited a strong in-plane uniaxial anisotropy. Field dependence of high frequency (10/sup 6/ Hz) transverse susceptibility (/spl chi//sub T/) measurements were used to probe the magnetic anisotropy and switching in CrO/sub 2/ films for varying temperature (10 to 300 K) and different orientations of the applied field with respect to the magnetic easy axis. Singular peaks in /spl chi//sub T/ were observed and are associated with the anisotropy and switching fields. The /spl chi//sub T/ data at low temperatures reveal an unusual variation of the singular peaks. This can be described by including magnetoelastic contributions resulting from the in-plane tensile strain in the film due to lattice mismatch with the substrate.