Temperature-induced reversal of magnetic interlayer exchange coupling

Abstract

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 $M_5$ 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 $d_Y$, a temperature-induced sign reversal of IEC was observed for constant $d_Y$, arising from magnetization-dependent electron reflectivities at the magnetic interfaces.

4 pages, 4 figures; accepted version; minor changes and new Figs. 2 and 4 containing more data

References in corpus (2)

• On the origin of temperature dependence of interlayer exchange coupling in metallic trilayers
• X-ray magneto-optics of lanthanide materials: principles and applications

Cited by in corpus (5)

• Thermally induced antiferromagnetic exchange in magnetic multilayers
• Magnetic hysteresis in nanostructures with thermally-controlled RKKY coupling
• Thermal switching of indirect interlayer exchange in magnetic multilayers
• Tuning thermo-magnetic properties of dilute-ferromagnet multilayers using RKKY interaction
• Efficient characteristics of exchange coupling and spin-flop transition in Py/Gd bilayer using anisotropic magnetoresistance