In this work we analyse the role of a thin Cr spacer between Fe and Gd layers on structure and magnetic properties of a [Fe(35A)/Cr(tCr)/Gd(50A)/Cr(tCr)]x12 superlattice. Samples without the Cr spacer (tCr=0) and with a thin tCr=4A are investigated using X-ray diffraction, polarized neutron and resonance X-ray magnetic reflectometry, SQUID magnetometery, magneto-optical Kerr effect and ferromagnetic resonance techniques. Magnetic properties are studied experimentally in a wide temperature range 4-300K and analysed theoretically using numerical simulation on the basis of the mean-field model. We show that a reasonable agreement with the experimental data can be obtained considering temperature dependence of the effective field parameter in gadolinium layers. The analysis of the experimental data shows that besides a strong reduction of the antiferromagnetic coupling between Fe and Gd, the introduction of Cr spacers into Fe/Gd superlattice leads to modification of both structural and magnetic characteristics of the ferromagnetic layers.
@article{arxiv.1712.09628,
title = {Effect of Cr spacer on structural and magnetic properties of Fe/Gd multilayers},
author = {A. B. Drovosekov and M. V. Ryabukhina and D. I. Kholin and N. M. Kreines and E. A. Manuilovich and A. O. Savitsky and E. A. Kravtsov and V. V. Proglyado and V. V. Ustinov and T. Keller and Yu. N. Khaydukov and Y. Choi and D. Haskel},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1712.09628},
year = {2018}
}