Morphology and magnetic properties of nanocomposite magnetic multilayers [(Co40Fe40B20)34(SiO2)66]/[C]47

•Morphology of [(Co40Fe40B20)34(SiO2)66]/[C] 47 multilayers with different thickness of carbon layer layers was determined by the GISAXS.•Different conductivity mechanisms were found for the high-Ohmic sample with carbon interlayer thickness of hc = 0.4 nm and low-Ohmic sample with carbon interlayer thickness of hc = 1.8 nm.•A different volume of the magnetic nanoparticles results to the blocking temperature and magnetization decrease with increasing the carbon interlayer thickness.

We report on the investigation of morphology, magnetic and conductive properties of the mutilayered nanostructures [(Co 40Fe 40B 20) 34(SiO 2) 66]/[C] 47 consisting of the contacting magnetic (Co 40Fe 40B 20) 34(SiO 2) 66 nanocomposite and amorphous semiconductor carbon C layers. It is shown by Grazing-Incidence Small-Angle X-ray Scattering method that the ordering and the size of nanoparticles in the magnetic layers do not change profoundly with increasing of carbon layer thickness. Meanwhile, the electrical conductance and the magnetic properties are significantly varied: resistance of the samples changes by four orders of magnitude and superparamagnetic blocking temperature changes from 15 K to 7 K with the increment of carbon layer thickness hc from 0.4 nm to 1.8 nm. We assume that the formation of the homogeneous semiconductor interlayer leads to modification of the metal-insulator growth process that drives the changes in the magnetic and conductive properties.