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

Invited Paper MI-ThM7
X-ray Dichroism Studies of Induced Magnetism in Magnetic Multilayers

Thursday, November 5, 1998, 10:20 am, Room 324/325

Session: Magnetic Spectroscopies
Presenter: G.R. Harp, Ohio University
Authors: G.R. Harp, Ohio University
M.A. Tomaz, Ohio University
W.J. Antel, Ohio University
M.M. Schwickert, Ohio University
T. Lin, Ohio University
F. Perjeru, Ohio University
Correspondent: Click to Email
X-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD) and linear dichroism (XMLD) are applied to study the element-specific magnetization in Fe/TM(001) superlattices (here TM = V, Cr, Co, Ni, Nb, Mo, Ru, Rh, Pd, Ta, W, Pt). Within the Fe layers (5-20 Å thickness) we observe a wide variety of behaviors, from strong enhancement to complete suppression of the magnetic moment. The details depend on the spacer material and the crystal structure of the superlattice (bcc, fcc, or hcp). The real power of x-ray dichroism, however, is seen in studies of the spacer layer moments, which are often quite small. Various behaviors are observed depending on the spacer material. For ferromagnetic elements (Ni, Co) a strong moment enhancement is sometimes observed (Ni) or sometimes not (Co). For nonmagnetic elements, the induced magnetization may be parallel or antiparallel to that of the Fe. This induced magnetic moment may be confined to the interface region (e.g. Cr), may decay slowly toward the layer interior (e.g. V), or may be almost ferromagnetic, in the sense that the average moment per atom is constant over a range of thicknesses (e.g. Pt). Additionally, x-ray magnetic LINEAR dichroism can probe antiferromagnetic arrangements within spacer layers. As an example, XMLD is applied to the Fe/Cr system to search for commensurate antiferromagnetism within the Cr layers.