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Surfactant controlled interface roughness and spin-dependent scattering in Cu/Co multilayers

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Abstract

In this work, we studied a correlation between spin-dependent scattering and interface roughness in Cu/Co multilayers. In Cu/Co multilayers, Cu-on-Co and Co-on-Cu interfaces are not identical because of significant difference in the surface free energy of Cu and Co. By adding Ag surfactant during the growth of multilayer structure, we found that the difference between the interface roughness of two interfaces can be minimized. By doing this we found that the strength of anti-ferromagnetic coupling increases significantly. A comparison between normalized magnetoresistance to antiferromagnetic fraction with interface roughness shows the variation of spin-dependent scattering at the interface in Cu/Co multilayers.

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Acknowledgements

This work is partially based on experiments performed with neutron reflectometer AMOR at the Swiss spallation neutron source SINQ, Paul Scherrer Institute, Villigen, Switzerland. We acknowledge DST, Government of India, for providing financial support to carry out NR experiments under its schemes “Utilisation of International Synchrotron Radiation and Neutron Scattering facilities.” We are thankful to M. Horisberger and S. Potdar for their help in sample preparation. We are also thankful to Dr. R.J. Chaudhary for SVSM measurement. Continuous support and encouragements received from Dr. P. Chaddah is gratefully acknowledged.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. UGC-DAE Consortium for Scientific Research, University Campus, Khandwa Road, Indore, 452001, India

    S. M. Amir, Mukul Gupta & Ajay Gupta

  2. Laboratory for Neutron Scattering, Paul Scherrer Institut, 5232, Villigen, Switzerland

    J. Stahn

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  1. S. M. Amir
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  2. Mukul Gupta
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  3. Ajay Gupta
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  4. J. Stahn
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Correspondence to Mukul Gupta.

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Amir, S.M., Gupta, M., Gupta, A. et al. Surfactant controlled interface roughness and spin-dependent scattering in Cu/Co multilayers. Appl. Phys. A 111, 495–499 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00339-012-7527-9

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