EN
We report on an incorporation of self-assembled templates of superparamagnetic Fe-O nanoparticles into tunnel magnetoresistance devices. We fabricated a multilayer stack composed of the following layer sequence: Cr/Au/Co/NP/Co/Cu on Si(100) substrate where NP stands for a self-assembled layer of nanoparticles deposited by the Langmuir-Blodgett technique. The X-ray reflectivity and grazing-incidence small angle X-ray scattering were employed to study the layers thicknesses and interface morphology in each preparation step. In particular, the grazing-incidence small angle X-ray scattering was measured before and after the nanoparticle incorporation as well as on the complete tunnel magnetoresistance stack. In this way, in-depth morphology profile during subsequent preparation steps was obtained. We demonstrate that X-ray analysis of the deposited tunnel magnetoresistance stack is essential for successful fabrication of novel hybrid devices consisting of self-assembled nanoparticles.