Investigation of Magnetic and Electronic Properties of Sputtered Fe/Au Multilayers

We present an experimental and theoretical investigation of magnetic and electronic properties of sputtered Fe/Au multilayers with an emphasis on interfacial effects. Spin-wave theory was used to simulate the change of magnetization as a function of temperature for multilayers with different Fe thicknesses, in which several fundamental magnetic parameters were extracted. The Fe thickness dependence of magnetization shows a significant increase of Fe magnetic moment at small Fe thicknesses. Close to the interface, the Fe moment is found to be 2.9 μ B , which is higher than the value reported in bulk Fe (2.2 μ B ). It is shown that the increase in Fe moment is mainly associated with the increase of the Fe–Fe distance close to the interface due to the lattice mismatch between Fe and Au. First-principle calculations were performed as well and have supported the proposed scenario.