Abstract
Sputtered Ni80Fe20/Ag multilayers, annealed post-growth, show giant magnetoresistive (GMR) effects at unusually low magnetic fields (≈ 5 Oe)[l]. Structural characterization by cross-sectional TEM[2] and x-ray diffraction indicates that the Ag preferentially diffuses into the Ni80Fe20 layers at the interfaces. Using polarized-neutron specular reflectivity, we have obtained magnetization depth profiles for a series of annealed [Ni8oFe2o(20Å)/Ag(40Å)]4 multilayers. Though GMR in related materials is associated with coherent antiferromagnetic alignment of the ferromagnetic layers, specular neutron data for the Ni80Fe20/Ag multilayers show no trace of half-order spin-flip intensity characteristic of this simple structure. In small applied fields, transverse scans at the half-order position show a broad feature which disappears upon saturation. These data suggest that while the Ni80Fe20 moments are antiferromagnetically correlated along the growth axis, the in-plane magnetic domains are only of micron-order size and are thus not apparent in a specular measurement.
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Borchers, J.A., Gehring, P.M., Majkrzak, C.F. et al. Magnetic Structure Determination for Annealed Ni80Fe20/Ag Multilayers Using Polarized-Neutron Reflectivity. MRS Online Proceedings Library 376, 577–582 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1557/PROC-376-577
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1557/PROC-376-577