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Phys. Rev. Lett. 75, 1847–1850 (1995)

[Issue 9 – 28 August 1995 ]

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Giant Near-90° Coupling in Epitaxial CoFe/Mn/CoFe Sandwich Structures

M. E. Filipkowski

Physics Department, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, Arkansas 72701

J. J. Krebs and G. A. Prinz

Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, D.C. 20375

C. J. Gutierrez

Physics Department, Southwest Texas State University, San Marcos, Texas 78666

Trilayer samples of CoFe/Mn/CoFe(001) have been prepared by molecular beam epitaxy and investigated by magnetometry and ferromagnetic resonance (FMR). Very strong near-90° coupling (up to 2.5 ergs/cm²) between the CoFe layers, with no evidence for 180° coupling, was found in all but the thickest Mn-layer samples. The field dependence of the magnetization requires that the coupling energy have the algebraic form F_c = C₊( phi ₁- phi ₂)²+C_-( phi ₁- phi ₂- pi )² suggested recently for antiferromagnetic interlayers. The observed angular dependence of both the acoustic and optical FMR modes found can be described by this model.

©1995 The American Physical Society

URL: http://link.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v75/p1847
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.75.1847
PACS: 75.70.Fr, 75.50.Rr, 76.50.+g

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