Antiferromagnetic interlayer exchange coupling across epitaxial, Ge-containing spacers

Gareev, R. R.; Schreiber, R.; Buchmeier, M.; Braak, H.; Bürgler, D. E.; Grünberg, P. A.

doi:10.1063/1.1606102

Journal Article

Antiferromagnetic interlayer exchange coupling across epitaxial, Ge-containing spacers

Gareev, R. R.FZJ* ; Bürgler, D. E.FZJ* ; Schreiber, R.FZJ* ; Braak, H.FZJ* ; Buchmeier, M.FZJ* ; Grünberg, P. A.FZJ*

2003
American Institute of Physics Melville, NY

Applied physics letters 83, 1806 - 1808 (2003) [10.1063/1.1606102]

This record in other databases:

Please use a persistent id in citations: http://hdl.handle.net/2128/915 doi:10.1063/1.1606102

Abstract: We give experimental evidence of antiferromagnetic interlayer exchange coupling of Fe(001) layers across epitaxial, Ge-containing spacers consisting of either Ge wedges embedded between two Si boundary layers or Si-Ge-multilayers. The coupling strengths are of the order of 1 mJ/m(2) and decay on a length scale below 2 Angstrom as determined from magneto-optic Kerr effect and Brillouin light scattering. The coupling evolves with the spacer thickness from ferromagnetic to prevailing 90degrees or antiferromagnetic for Ge wedges and Si-Ge multilayers, respectively. The bilinear coupling is comparable in both cases, but the biquadratic contribution is suppressed for Si-Ge-multilayer spacers. Thus, Si-Ge-multilayer spacers give rise to perfect antiparallel alignment of the Fe film magnetizations. (C) 2003 American Institute of Physics.

Keyword(s): J

Classification: