AVS 45th International Symposium
    Magnetic Interfaces and Nanostructures Technical Group Thursday Sessions
       Session MI-ThM

Paper MI-ThM3
Magnetic Structure of Cr Layers in Fe/Cr(001)Superlattices from X-ray Magnetic Dichroism

Thursday, November 5, 1998, 9:00 am, Room 324/325

Session: Magnetic Spectroscopies
Presenter: F. Perjeru, Ohio University
Authors: F. Perjeru, Ohio University
M.M. Schwickert, Ohio University
W.J. Antel, Ohio University
T. Lin, Ohio University
G.R. Harp, Ohio University
M.A. Tomaz, Ohio University
W.L. O`Brien, SRC Madison, Wisconsin
Correspondent: Click to Email
Element-specific magnetometry is used to determine the magnetic moments of Fe and Cr in Fe/Cr(001) superlattices as a function of Cr thickness from 0-50Å, using x-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD) and x-ray magnetic linear dichroism (XMLD). XMCD and XMLD are sensitive to the average magnetization, , and average of squared magnetization,, respectively. High quality Fe/Cr(001) multilayers are prepared by sputter epitaxy and several AF coupling peaks between Fe layers are observed in these films. If antiferromagnetism is present in the Cr layer, it is expected that will be enhanced relative to , that is @sr@ (this assumes layer antiferromagnetism in the Cr with 180° alignment of atom-thick Cr layers). Comparatively, roughness at the experimental Fe/Cr interface might cause frustration which could suppress the antiferromagnetism in the Cr. From measurements of XMCD and XMLD from sputter deposited films, it was found that the Cr atoms have net spin polarization only near the Fe/Cr interface and @sr@ = . This leads to the conclusion that the Cr layers are mainly paramagnetic in the present multilayers, at room temperature. Further experiments are underway to repeat these measurements at 100K, where the tendency to antiferromagnetism within the Cr layer may be enhanced. Both room temperature and low temperature results will be presented.