Abstract
The coupling strength of the interlayer exchange coupling in magnetic multilayer systems is strongly determined by the quality of the interfaces between magnetic and nonmagnetic layers. Consequently, theoretical and experimental results differ in general by one order of magnitude. Measurements for Fe/Au samples of high structural quality have been performed [Unguris et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 79, 2734 (1997)]. The obtained coupling strength $(J\ensuremath{\approx}1{\mathrm{m}\mathrm{J}/\mathrm{m}}^{2})$ is much higher than in previous measurements. The aim of this paper is to present ab initio calculations for Fe/Au (001) multilayers with the same sample dimensions as in the experiments. The structure is characterized by a bcc-fcc transition. The calculations are based on density functional theory using a scalar-relativistic Screened Korringa-Kohn-Rostoker method. The results show that in the case of ideally smooth interfaces the differences of the theoretically and experimentally obtained coupling strengths by one order of magnitude remain. It will be demonstrated that the usual explanation by means of mesoscopic roughness fails. Instead, impurity scattering at the interface is discussed. This mechanism leads to highly anisotropic damping rates of the quantum well states.
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