For epitaxial trilayers of the magnetic rare-earth metals Gd and Tb, exchange coupled through a non-magnetic Y spacer layer, element-specific hysteresis loops were recorded by the x-ray magneto-optical Kerr effect at the rare-earth M5 thresholds. This allowed us to quantitatively determine the strength of interlayer exchange coupling (IEC). In addition to the expected oscillatory behavior as a function of spacer-layer thickness dY, a temperature-induced sign reversal of IEC was observed for constant dY, arising from magnetization-dependent electron reflectivities at the magnetic interfaces.
@article{arxiv.0712.3122,
title = {Temperature-induced reversal of magnetic interlayer exchange coupling},
author = {K. M. Doebrich and M. Wietstruk and J. E. Prieto and F. Heigl and O. Krupin and K. Starke and G. Kaindl},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0712.3122},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
4 pages, 4 figures; accepted version; minor changes and new Figs. 2 and 4 containing more data