Magnetic neutron off-specular scattering for the direct determination of the coupling angle in exchange-coupled multilayers

A new method is presented for the direct determination of the coupling angle in magnetic exchange multilayers. Strong anomalies in the off-specular neutron spin–flip scattering intensity at critical angles give a new tool, which is tested with Fe/Cr multilayers. In addition, a complete two-dimensional data analysis of specular reflection and off-specular scattering has been employed to verify atomic spin correlation in Fe/Cr multilayers, a typical system showing the GMR effect.