Optical and magnetic properties of Al/NiFe and Al/Ge/NiFe nanosized films

Abstract

Nanosized films with ferromagnetic layers are widely used in nanoelectronics, sensor systems and telecommunication. The physical and magnetic properties of nanolayers may significantly differ from those known for bulk materials due to fine crystalline structure, influence of interfaces, roughness, and diffusion. In this work, we are employing a spectral ellipsometry method, magneto-optical Kerr magnetometry and VSM to investigate the impact of layer thickness on the optical constants and magnetization processes for two and three layer films of the type Al/NiFe/sitall, Al/Ge/NiFe/sitall on sitall substrate for different thickness of the upper Al layers. The refractive indexes of two layer films are well resolved by spectral ellipsometry demonstrating their good quality. Modelling data for three-layer films show considerable discrepancy with the experiment, which can be related to a stronger influence of interfaces. The magnetization processes of two-layer films weakly depend on the type and thickness of the upper non-ferromagnetic layers. However, the coercivity of three layer films may significantly change with the thickness of the upper layer: more than twice when the thickness of Al layer increases from 4 to 20 nm.