Abstract
During the early 80s, advanced techniques for the deposition of ultra-thin metal films were developed. This led to the fabrication of new artificial materials consisting of different materials stacked in thin sandwiches (hetero-structures). The combination of these different types of materials gave rise to new physical phenomena. The first new phenomenon to be probed was the magnetic exchange coupling in super-lattices. It appeared that magnetic layers separated by non magnetic spacer layers can be magnetically coupled. The coupling can be ferromagnetic, anti-ferromagnetic or more complex (quadratic or even helical). The coupling can also change sign (from ferro to anti-ferro) as a function of the spacer layer thickness. Such phenomena were observed in rare-earth super-lattices (Gd/Y, Dy/Y, Gd/Dy, Ho/Y), transition metals super-lattices (Fe/Cr, Co/Cu, Fe/V, Co/Ru), and mixing of semiconductors and metals (Fe/Si, Fe/Ge). The field is still expanding as new systems are being synthesized, especially with magnetic semi-conducting materials (GaMnAs, EuS/PbS) or oxide materials (Fe2O3, Fe3O4, CoFe2O4, perovskites of the type ABMnO3).
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