Using circularly polarized soft x rays to probe antiferromagnetically correlated Co/Cu multilayers

Abstract

X-ray resonant magnetic scattering was used to study the antiferromagnetic correlation between weakly coupled Co layers in a [Co(6 nm)|Cu(6 nm)]20 multilayer. Half-order peaks were observed for standard specular θ–2θ scans with the energy of the incident x rays tuned to the Co L3 absorption edge. Three characteristic lengths were extracted from fits to the multicomponent 3/2-order diffuse spectrum: average correlated domain size, average correlated domain wall thickness, and average in-plane structural correlation length.