Effect of NiO on the magnetic property and electronic structure in the Co7/Cu2

In this work, we have studied the effect of the NiO antiferromagnetic layer on the magnetic properties and electronic structure for a Co/Cu multilayer. Three models were established: (1) Co7 (Model-A), consisting of 7 Co atomic layers (CoA1/CoB1/CoC1/CoA2/CoB2/CoC2/CoA3); (2) Co7/Cu2 (Model-B), consisting of 9 layers (Co6/CoA3/CuB/CuC); and (3) NiO3/Co7/Cu2 (Model-C), consisting of 12 atomic layers (NiA/OB/NiC/CoA1/Co5/CoA3/CuB/CuC). The discrete variational method has been employed for the calculations in this work. It is found that the presence of the NiO reduces the magnetic moment of the Co layers in the Co7/Cu2. Meanwhile, the spin asymmetry for the Co layers is suppressed by the NiO, which is caused by a larger increase for the spin-up than for the spin-down electrons in the density of state at Fermi level.