Applied Physics Letters -- April 8, 1991 -- Volume 58, Issue 14
pp. 1473-1475 

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Antiferromagnetic interlayer exchange coupling in sputtered Fe/Cr
multilayers: Dependence on number of Fe layers

      S. S. P. Parkin 
      IBM Research Division, Almaden Research Center, 650 Harry Road, San
Jose, California 95120-6099 

      A. Mansour and G. P. Felcher 
      Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Ilinois 60439 

(Received 5 November 1990; accepted 6 February 1991) 

The antiferromagnetic arrangement of the magnetic moments of Fe layers in
sputtered Fe/Cr multilayered structures is directly demonstrated from
polarized neutron reflectometry studies. Such an
antiferromagnetic interlayer exchange coupling is also consistent with
magnetization studies on a series of [Fe/Cr]N structures. A remanent
magnetization is observed for structures containing an odd
number of bilayers but no remanent moment is found for an even number of
bilayers. By examining the dependence of saturation field on the number of
bilayers it is shown that the antiferromagnetic
coupling strength is independent of the number of bilayers and is the same
for superlattice and sandwich structures. Applied Physics Letters is
copyrighted by The American Institute of Physics. 


DOI: 10.1063/1.105201 
PACS: 75.70.Fr, 75.50.Bb, 75.50.Ee