Optical Studies of Non-Magnetic Spacer in Thin Fe/Si Multilayers

W. Szuszkiewicza, M. Jouanneb, J.F. Morhangeb, M. Chernyshovaa, L. Kowalczyka, E. Łusakowskaa, P. Wandziukc and T. Lucińskic a Institute of Physics, Polish Academy of Sciences, al. Lotników 32/46, 02-668 Warsaw, Poland bInstitut des Nanosciences de Paris, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Campus Boucicaut, 140, rue de Lourmel, 75015 Paris, France cInstitute of Molecular Physics, Polish Academy of Sciences, Smoluchowskiego 17, 60-179 Poznań, Poland

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Received: 4 06 2005;

Structures containing magnetic metallic layers attract a lot of attention because of their possible applications in the area of spintronics. The hybrid structures compatible with the Si crystal lattice parameter are of special interest. In this work the short-period Fe/Si multilayers were grown by the sputtering onto (001)-oriented Si substrate and investigated by various techniques. After the deposition, all multilayers were characterized by atomic force microscopy. The goal of the present paper was to determine the chemical composition of thin layer created at the interface in Fe/Si multilayers due to the Fe diffusion into Si, as well as to analyze the phenomena, which take place in this area. The results of the optical characterization by the Raman scattering were correlated with the magnetic properties of investigated structures (determined by means of the Kerr rotation).

DOI: 10.12693/APhysPolA.108.891 PACS numbers: 68.55.-a, 75.70.-i, 78.30.-j