Tailoring the electric and magnetic properties of submicron-sized metallic multilayered systems by TVA atomic inter-diffusion engineered processes

Layer-by-layer and inter-diffused type structures were prepared and comparatively analyzed by scanning electron microscopy, X-ray microanalysis, atomic force microscopy, X-ray diffraction and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy coupled with selected area electron diffraction. We presented the influence of the microstructure on electric and magnetic properties of the submicron-sized multilayers. The dependence of the electric resistance and the magnetoresistance on the composition, structure, morphology and roughness of the layers was established. We obtained an electric resistance value of 1.22 Ω for the layer-by-layer type structure, and 0.46 Ω for the inter-diffusion designed structure. Using the atomic inter-diffusion we succeeded in achieving an improvement of the magnetoresistive effect, from 0.1% to 2.3%.