Experiments on Interlayer Exchange Coupling

• Authors: P. Grünberg , M. Schaefer , K. Takanashi , U. Rücker , J. Nassar , I. Mertig
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

The results of various experiments on interlayer exchange coupling will be reviewed. After a general discussion of the theoretical understanding we deal first with 90°-type coupling and show that two mechanisms proposed by Slonczewski can explain our measured data. We furthermore study the coupling of Fe films across Cu_{x}Au_{1-x} alloys. For the composition with x=0.5, the coupling strength strongly increases with annealing. We believe that this is due to an order-disorder structural transformation in the Cu_{x}Au_{1-x} alloy. Finally, we present results on epitaxially grown bilayers Fe/EuS(100) and trilayers Fe/EuS/Fe(100). In the latter at room temperature we observe a strong decrease in the coupling strength as a function of the interlayer thickness, with a characteristic length of about 0.1 nm. At low temperatures in the bilayer we find an antiferromagnetic coupling between Fe and the adjacent ferromagnetic EuS.

Keywords

EN

75.70.Cn; 75.30.Et; 75.70.-i

• Journal: Acta Physica Polonica A
• Year: 1997
• Volume: 91
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 7-14

Dates

published

1997-01

Contributors

author

P. Grünberg

• Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH - IFF, 52425 Jülich, Germany

author

M. Schaefer

• Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH - IFF, 52425 Jülich, Germany

author

K. Takanashi

• Institute for Materials Research, Tohoku University, Sendai 980-77, Japan

author

U. Rücker

• Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH - IFF, 52425 Jülich, Germany

author

J. Nassar

• Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH - IFF, 52425 Jülich, Germany

author

I. Mertig

• Institut für Theoretische Physik, Technische Universität Dresden, 01062 Dresden, Germany