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Physical Review B (Condensed Matter and Materials Physics) -- November 1, 2000 -- Volume 62, Issue 17, pp. 11340-11343

Determination of equilibrium coupling angles in magnetic multilayers by polarized neutron reflectometry

C. H. Marrows,¹ S. Langridge,² and B. J. Hickey¹

¹Department of Physics and Astronomy, E.C. Stoner Laboratory, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, United Kingdom
²ISIS Facility, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Chilton, Didcot, Oxon OX11 0QX, United Kingdom

(Received 14 January 2000; revised 24 May 2000)

We have performed polarized neutron reflectometry (PNR) on Co/Cu multilayers grown by sputter deposition at the first antiferromagnetic (AF) maximum of the coupling oscillation. The growth of the Cu spacer layers was paused halfway through each layer for a variable amount of time to allow residual gases to be adsorbed onto the surface. A sample with clean Cu spacers shows good AF coupling, with low remanence and high saturation field. The PNR spectra show a strong -order Bragg peak and little splitting between the reflectivities for incident and spin neutrons at zero field, characteristic of AF ordering. Meanwhile, a more heavily gas-damaged sample with a remanent fraction of ~/2 has strongly spin-split PNR spectra at the critical edge and nuclear Bragg peak, showing a significant ferromagnetic component. A strong -order Bragg peak is still present. We are able to fit accurately the magnetization and PNR data by assuming that such a sample shows considerable biquadratic coupling, with moments coupled close to 90° at zero field. ©2000 The American Physical Society

URL: http://link.aps.org/abstract/PRB/v62/p11340
doi:10.1103/PhysRevB.62.11340
PACS: 75.70.Cn, 61.12.Ha, 75.25.+z        Additional Information

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