Theoretical and experimental study of Fe/Cr nanometric quasiperiodic multilayers

An experimental and theoretical study of magnetization curves of Fe/Cr nanometric magnetic films grown with the structure of the quasiperiodic Fibonacci sequence is presented. Fe ferromagnetic films with interfilm exchange coupling provided by intervening Cr non-ferromagnetic layers were grown on MgO (100) by dc magnetron sputtering at 300 ∘C. The magnetization curves were investigated using the magneto-optical Kerr effect with the external field applied along the easy axis. The theoretical approach for this system is based on a realistic phenomenological model that includes the following contributions to free magnetic energy: Zeeman, cubic magneto-crystalline anisotropy, as well as bilinear and biquadratic exchange energies. Our numerical results are in very good agreement with the experimental data.

Research highlights
► Experimental and theoretical study of Fe/Cr quasiperiodic nanometric magnetic structures.
► Magnetic films coupled by bilinear and biquadratic energies grown on MgO by sputtering.
► The magnetization curves were investigated using the magneto-optical Kerr effect.
► Numerical results are in very good agreement with the experimental data.