By using one ultrathin NiO layer to replace the Pt capping layer in the Co/Pt multilayer with perpendicular anisotropy, we present direct evidence for the existence of antiferromagnetic interlayer coupling between the Co layers through the Pt layers thicker than 24 Å. The NiO capping layers play two key roles in the observation of antiferromagnetic interlayer coupling. One is the manipulation of the coercivity of the Co layer in contact with the NiO layer, the other is the enhancement of the electron reflectivities at the Co/Pt interfaces via the specular scattering effect at the Co-NiO interface. The thermal variation in the magnetization of the Co layer also plays an important role in the observed antiferromagnetic coupling due to its strong effect on the phase of electron reflectivity at the Co/Pt interfaces. The magnetization-dependent phase can lead to the ferromagnetic-antiferromagnetic transition of the interlayer coupling at high temperature. All these factors are combined together to realize the direct observation of antiferromagnetic interlayer coupling in the Co/Pt multilayer with perpendicular anisotropy.

A novel polarization splitter based on dual-core silica glass photonic crystal fiber with a liquid crystal modulation core is studied by the finite-element method. The mode birefringence is enlarged greatly with the infilling of nematic liquid crystal of E7. The simulation results demonstrate that the polarization splitter has an ultrabroad bandwidth of 250 nm, covering the E S C L optical communication bands, with the extinction ratio better than À20 dB. The separate length is 0.175 mm, and the extinction ratio is À80.7 dB at the communication wavelength of 1550 nm. The polarization splitter exhibits satisfactory splitter performance as the fabrication deviation reaches to 1%. The extinction ratio maintains better than À20 dB, at the C L optical communication bands, as the temperature increases from 15 C to 50 C.