Polarized neutron reflectometry is used to study the magnetic proximity effect in a superconductor/ferromagnet (SC/FM) system of composition Cu(32nm)/V(40nm)/Fe(1nm)/MgO. In contrast to previous studies, here a single SC/FM bilayer, is studied and multilayer artefacts are excluded. The necessary signal enhancement is achieved by waveguide resonance, i.e. preparing the V(40nm)/Fe(1nm) SC/FM bilayer sandwiched by the highly reflective MgO substrate and Cu top layer, respectively . A new magnetic state of the system was observed at temperatures below 0.7 T C . manifested in a systematic change in the height and width of the waveguide resonance peak. Upon increasing the temperature from 0.7 T C to T C , a gradual decay of this state is observed, accompanied by a 5% growth of the diffuse scattering. According to theoretical studies, such behavior is the result of the magnetic proximity effect. Due to the presence of the thin FM layer the superconducting electrons are polarized and, as a result, near the SC/FM interface an additional magnetic layer appears in the SC with thickness comparable to ξ, the coherence length of the superconductor.

We report on a study of the structural, magnetic and superconducting properties of Nb(25nm)/Gd(d f )/Nb(25nm) hybrid structures of a superconductor/ ferromagnet (S/F) type. The structural characterization of the samples, including careful determination of the layer thickness, was performed using neutron and X-ray scattering with the aid of depth sensitive mass-spectrometry. The magnetization of the samples was determined by SQUID magnetometry and polarized neutron reflectometry and the presence of magnetic ordering for all samples down to the thinnest Gd(0.8nm) layer was shown. The analysis of the neutron spin asymmetry allowed us to prove the absence of magnetically dead layers in junctions with Gd interlayer thickness larger than one monolayer. The measured dependence of the superconducting transition temperature Tc(d f ) has a damped oscillatory behavior with well defined positions of the minimum at d f =3nm and the following maximum at d f =4nm; the behavior, which is in qualitative agreement with the prior work (J.S. Jiang et al, PRB 54, 6119). The analysis of the Tc(d f ) dependence based on Usadel equations showed that the observed minimum at d f =3nm can be described by the so called "0" to "π" phase transition of highly transparent S/F interfaces with the superconducting correlation length ξ f ≈ 4nm in Gd. This penetration length is several times higher than for strong ferromagnets like Fe, Co or Ni, simplifying thus preparation of S/F structures with d f ∼ ξ f which are of topical interest in superconducting spintronics.

Here we report on a feasibility study aiming to explore the potential of Polarized Neutron Reflectometry (PNR) for detecting the inverse proximity effect in a single superconducting/ferromagnetic bilayer. Experiments, conducted on the V(40nm)/Fe(1nm) S/F bilayer, have shown that experimental spin asymmetry measured at T = 0.5T C is shifted towards higher Q values compared to the curve measured at T = 1.5T C . Such a shift can be described by the appearance in superconducting vanadium of magnetic sublayer with thickness of 7 nm and magnetization of +0.8 kG.

No abstract

We have used spin-polarized neutron reflectometry to investigate the magnetization profile of superlattices composed of ferromagnetic Gd and superconducting Nb layers. We have observed a partial suppression of ferromagnetic (F) order of Gd layers in [Gd(dF )/Nb(25nm)]12 superlattices below the superconducting (S) transition of the Nb layers. The amplitude of the suppression decreases with increasing dF . By analyzing the neutron spin asymmetry we conclude that the observed effect has an electromagnetic origin -the proximity-coupled S layers screen out the external magnetic field and thus suppress the F response of the Gd layers inside the structure. Our investigation demonstrates the considerable influence of electromagnetic effects on the magnetic properties of S/F systems.Artificial heterostructures with alternating superconducting (S) and ferromagnetic (F) layers are currently attracting great attention due to a diverse set of proximity effects [1-5], including the Larkin-Ovchinnikov-Fulde-Ferrell phase, π-phase superconductivity and triplet pairing. These effects show how ferromagnetism influences the superconducting properties of the S/F heterostructures. Converse proximity effects in which superconductivity influences ferromagnetism have received less attention. Such magnetic proximity effects are expected in systems where the F and S transition temperatures, T F and T c , are comparable, which is the case for heterostructures of cuprate high-T c superconductors and ferromagnetic manganates [6][7][8][9], and for some bulk compounds [10][11][12]. However, because of the chemical and electronic complexity of these materials, simple model systems for magnetic proximity effects are highly desirable.