Magnetism of rare-earth transition-metal nanoscale multilayers. II. Theoretical analysis of magnetization and perpendicular magnetic anisotropy

Z. S. Shan, D. J. Sellmyer, S. S. Jaswal, Y. J. Wang, J. X. Shen

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

60 Scopus citations

Abstract

Systematic studies of rare-earth transition-metal amorphous compositionally modulated films (CMF) permit the development of a detailed model for understanding the magnetization and perpendicular magnetic anisotropy and their distributions along the film normal. It is shown that the single-ion anisotropy of rare-earth ions with orbital angular momentum is the major contributor to the perpendicular anisotropy for this class of CMF. The calculated results agree well with the experimental data for Dy/Co and Tb/Fe CMF when the individual layer thicknesses are small enough (<10); these films have structures which can be characterized as compositionally modulated amorphous alloys.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)10446-10459
Number of pages14
JournalPhysical Review B
Volume42
Issue number16
DOIs
StatePublished - 1990

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Condensed Matter Physics

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