In-plane momentum conservation in Fe/Cr/Au/Fe(001) layered structures

Abstract

We study the effect of an Au layer at one of the Cr/Fe interfaces in epitaxial Fe/Cr/Au/Fe͑001͒ sandwich structures on the magnetic interlayer coupling behavior by magneto-optical Kerr effect measurements and on the growth by scanning tunneling microscopy. The main effect of the Au layer is the suppression of the long-period oscillations of the magnetic interlayer coupling, while the short-period oscillations become dominant although their amplitude is stronger attenuated than ϰD Ϫ2 , where D is the total thickness of the nonferromagnetic spacer layers. These findings are explained with the shapes of the Fermi surfaces of the spacer materials ͑Au and Cr͒ and in-plane momentum conservation at the Cr/Au interface of the electrons that mediate the coupling. This interpretation implicates that the N-centered ellipse of the Cr Fermi surface is the origin of the long-period oscillations across Cr spacers.

Magnetic interlayer coupling between antiferromagnetic CoO and ferromagnetic Fe across a Ag spacer layer in epitaxially grown CoO/Ag/Fe/Ag(001)

“…This constraint eliminates some QWS in mediating the interlayer coupling. Although no direct measurement has been performed on Cr/Ag(001) spacer layer, interlayer coupling study on a similar system of Fe/Cr/Au/Fe(001) shows that the effect of momentum conservation parallel to the Cr/Au interface is to suppress the long-period interlayer coupling in the Cr layer [42]. That could explain why the coupling peak in Fig.…”

Inverse giant magnetoresistance due to spin-dependent interface scattering in Fe/Cr/Au/Co

“…The influence of shunting in the spacer on CIP-GMR has previously been illustrated by Hsu et al [8]. Furthermore, a reduced transmission probability -at least for certain parts of the Fermi surface-across the Cr/Au interface has been reported based on the comparison of the magnetic interlayer coupling behavior across pure Cr and Cr/Au interlayers, respectively [18].…”