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Physical Review Letters 7 March 2003 Phys. Rev. Lett. 90, 097201 (2003)

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Control of Interlayer Exchange Coupling in Fe/Cr/Fe Trilayers by Ion Beam Irradiation

S. O. Demokritov, C. Bayer, S. Poppe, M. Rickart, J. Fassbender, and B. Hillebrands

Fachbereich Physik, Technische Universität Kaiserslautern, D-67663 Kaiserslautern, Germany

D. I. Kholin and N. M. Kreines

Institute for Physical Problems, Russian Academy of Science, Moscow, Russia

O. M. Liedke

Institute of Experimental Physics, University of Bialystok, Poland

(Received 5 August 2002; published 3 March 2003)

The manipulation of the antiferromagnetic interlayer coupling in epitaxial Fe/Cr/Fe(001) trilayers by 5 keV He ion beam irradiation has been investigated. It is shown that even for irradiation with low fluences a drastic change in strength of the coupling appears. For thin Cr spacers (below 0.6–0.7 nm) it decreases with fluence, becoming ferromagnetic for fluences above 2×10¹⁴   ions/cm². The effect is connected with the creation of magnetic bridges in the layered system due to atomic exchange events caused by the bombardment. For thicker Cr spacers an enhancement of the antiferromagnetic coupling strength is found. A possible explanation of the enhancement effect is given. ©2003 The American Physical Society

URL: http://link.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v90/e097201
doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.90.097201
PACS: 75.70.Cn, 61.80.Jh, 68.35.-p        Additional Information

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