Magnons in ultrathin ferromagnetic films with a large perpendicular magnetic anisotropy

We report on an experimental observation of high-energy magnon excitations in ultrathin ferromagnetic films with a perpendicular easy axis. We demonstrate that a transversally spin-polarized beam can be used to excite and probe the high-energy magnons within spin-polarized electron energy-loss spectroscopy experiments. The magnon dispersion relation and lifetime are probed over the entire surface Brillouin zone for a set of body-centered tetragonal FeCo films with a large perpendicular magnetic anisotropy. First-principles calculations reveal that in addition to the tetragonal distortion, which is the origin of the large perpendicular magnetic anisotropy, the interfacial electronic hybridization also has a considerable impact on the properties of magnons.