Structural, field, and temperature dependence of noncollinear magnetic coupling in Fe/Cr(001) superlattices (abstract)

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Utilizing the magneto-optic Kerr effect (MOKE) in conjunction with x-ray and neutron reflectometry (NR) and diffraction, we have studied the magnetic coupling of Fe/Cr(001) superlattices grown at room temperature and 250 °C. Only the samples grown at elevated temperature exhibit noncollinear coupling of 5.0 nm Fe layers across 1.7 nm Cr interlayers. The noncollinear samples feature a less-disordered in-plane interfacial structure than those grown at room temperature. Using x-ray diffuse reflectivity, we have measured a length scale of 10 nm for these in-plane features. We have also observed, via NR, a remanent noncollinear coupling angle of 50° and, via MOKE and NR, a gradual approach to saturation at upwards of 7 kOe. These features can be explained qualitatively by the proximity magnetism model of Slonczewski. We will compare the predictions of both the proximity and bilinear/biquadratic models with our data and present the results of ongoing neutron measurements of the temperature dependence of the coupling. ©1996 American Institute of Physics.