Magnetic Exchange Coupling in Asymmetric Trilayers of Co/Cr/Fe

Abstract

ABSTRACTWe present first results of anisotropy and exchange coupling studies of a system with two different magnetic layers (Fe and Co) separated by a nonmagnetic Cr spacer. For the magnetic measurements we used the longitudinal magneto-optical Kerr effect and ferromagnetic resonance. The hysteresis data obtained from the trilayer were fit to a theoretical model which contains both bilinear and biquadratic coupling. The in-plane anisotropy was found to be four-fold with the same easy-axis orientation for both the Fe and the Co layers. An analysis of the easy-axishysteresis loops indicates long period oscillatory coupling and also suggests a short period coupling.