Effect of Interface Roughness on GMR in Fe/Cr Multilayers

Towards Flexible Magnetoelectronics: Buffer‐Enhanced and Mechanically Tunable GMR of Co/Cu Multilayers on Plastic Substrates

“…[19,20] As shown in Figure 2d, after PR buffering, the surface roughness of the Co/Cu MLs decreases over one order of magnitude, which suggests that the interface roughness within the Co/ Cu ML stack decreases after PR buffering and thus results in the enhancement of the GMR. [19] However, this cannot explain why the GMR values of Co/Cu MLs deposited on PRþP substrates are even larger than those of MLs deposited on Si because the surface roughness of MLs deposited on PRþP substrates are similar or even a little larger than those of MLs deposited on Si substrates. Because only antiferromagnetically coupled regions of the MLs can contribute to the magnetoresistance, the antiferromagnetic coupling fraction (AFF) is generally used to quantify the fraction of MLs with antiparallel alignment of adjacent film magnetizations at a zero external magnetic field.…”

“…[16] Still, GMR values of Co/Cu MLs deposited on plastic substrates are lower than those of Co/Cu MLs deposited on thermally oxidized Si (SiO 2 /Si, shortened as Si) substrates, which is caused by the large surface roughness of plastic substrates. [19,20] It should therefore be possible to improve the GMR effect of Co/Cu MLs on flexible plastic substrates by introducing suitable buffer layers to smoothen the rough surfaces.…”

Effects of Interface Roughness on Interlayer Coupling in Fe/Cr/Fe Structure

“…All the samples have been deposited simultaneously thus it is expected that there are no variations in the morphological features like grain size and grain texture of the specimens. In an earlier study it has been shown that films deposited simultaneously on substrates of different roughness have similar morphological feature like grain size and grain texture [4]. Therefore these films are expected to differ only in their surface and interface roughness.…”

“…Cr wedge was prepared by moving masks across the length of the specimen at a speed of about 0.5 mm/sec in order to achieve a thickness gradient of about 0.2 Å /mm. 140 Å Cr buffer layer has been deposited in order to improve the film quality [4,10], while 20 Å Au capping layer has been deposited in order to avoid the oxidation of the top Fe layer. All the samples have been deposited simultaneously thus it is expected that there are no variations in the morphological features like grain size and grain texture of the specimens.…”

Study of nano-scale diffusion in thin films and multilayers

“…Magnetic thin films are also extensively used in tunnel magnetoresistance devices. Any changes in the interfacial region between two layers in such nanostructures can greatly influence their physical properties [1][2][3]. Typical width of the interface in such multilayers is of the order of a nanometer.…”