GIANT MAGNETORESISTANCE DEPENDENCE ON AR ACCELERATION VOLTAGE IN CO9FE/CU AND CO3FE/CU MULTILAYERS

In relation to theoretical predictions on the importance of randomness at the interface to determine the cause for giant magnetoresistance, argon acceleration voltage (V(B)) in ion beam sputtering was changed for preparing a set of CoxFe1-x/Cu multilayers. We found that the magnetoresistance as quite sensitive to the argon acceleration voltage and had a maximum around V(B) = 600 V. Perfect antiferromagnetic coupling of the CoxFe1-x layers via thin Cu layers and the oscillation behavior of this indirect exchange coupling with a 12 anstrom period were observed for V(B) = 600 V. These results suggest the importance of the interface state for giant magnetoresistance in multilayers. We also found that a small saturation field can be induced, which can be explained by the metamagnetic transition associating the relation of K(u) > J/tCoFe.