The electrical resistivity of Fe-Cr-Fe layers with antiferromagnetic interlayer exchange increases when the magnetizations of the Fe layers are aligned antiparallel. The eA'ect is much stronger than the usual anisotropic magnetoresistance and further increases in structures with more than two Fe layers. It can be explained in terms of spin-Aip scattering of conduction electrons caused by the antiparallel alignment of the magnetization.

We have imaged ferroelectric domain walls in the ferroelectric-ferroelastic material Gd2(Mo)3 using force microscopy. By using a mode of imaging developed for the detection of static surface charge, the force gradient due to the polarization charge at the sample surface was imaged. The signal was seen to change sign at the domain wall, consistent with the reversal in sign of the polarization across a wall. By modeling the wall as a step function in the electric potential, the general features of the force microscope domain wall image could be explained.

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White light interferometry was applied to determine the bending of micromechanical cantilever sensors (MCS) with an error typically less than 1permille. Deflections smaller than 2nm could be resolved at a lateral resolution of 2μm. Absolute values for curvatures can be determined and suitable reference points can be chosen on the MCS support. This was demonstrated in experiments using plasma polymerized polyallylamine films, which cross link upon ultraviolet light irradiation. The results suggest that 100μm long segments are sufficient to estimate reliable curvature radii of 450μm long microcantilever sensors.

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