Structure and Magnetic Properties of Sm / Fe Multilayers Versus Substrate Temperature

Magnetic multilayers show many interesting phenomena depending on their thickness, elements and growth conditions such as the nature of substrate, deposition rate and substrate temperature etc. Also the interfaces have an enormous influence on the magnetic properties of multilayers. When the single layers are thin enough, the multilayer can be seen as an alloy [ 11. Due to the presence of the RE (rare earth) metals which have very large magnetic anisotropy, an amorphous alloy formed at interfaces between RE and TM (transition metal) may behave as random ferromagnets [ 1-31. RE-TM random magnets are characterized by strong ferromagnetic exchange and random magnetic anisotropy. Such systems have been successhlly described within the correlation spin-glass model [3]. According to this model, the magnetization is favorable to a stochastic pattern with a ferromagnetic correlation length, Rfi which depends on the exchange, A(ers/cm?, the strength of the random anisotropy, K(erg/cm ), and the length Ra at which anisotropy axes are correlated. Therefore random ferromagnets may be pictured as having been formed by magnetic clusters. In our experiments, the multilayers were made of very thin single layers of RE and TM metals in order to get the sample formed mainly by interfaces. We also found that the interfaces strongly depend on the substrate temperature.


L INTRODUCTION
Magnetic multilayers show many interesting phenomena depending on their thickness, elements and growth conditions such as the nature of substrate, deposition rate and substrate temperature etc.Also the interfaces have an enormous influence on the magnetic properties of multilayers.When the single layers are thin enough, the multilayer can be seen as an alloy [ 11. Due to the presence of the RE (rare earth) metals which have very large magnetic anisotropy, an amorphous alloy formed at interfaces between RE and TM (transition metal) may behave as random ferromagnets [ 1-31.
RE-TM random magnets are characterized by strong ferromagnetic exchange and random magnetic anisotropy.Such systems have been successhlly described within the correlation spin-glass model [3].According to this model, the magnetization is favorable to a stochastic pattern with a ferromagnetic correlation length, Rfi which depends on the exchange, A(ers/cm?, the strength of the random anisotropy, K(erg/cm ), and the length Ra at which anisotropy axes are correlated.Therefore random ferromagnets may be pictured as having been formed by magnetic clusters.
In our experiments, the multilayers were made of very thin single layers of RE and TM metals in order to get the sample formed mainly by interfaces.We also found that the interfaces strongly depend on the substrate temperature.The structure of the samples was analyzed by X-ray diffraction (Cu-Ka).It was found that sample 1, T,=40°C, was formed by amorphous SmFe clusters and polycrystalline a -Fe; sample 2, T,=150°C, was only formed by amorphous SnlFe clusters, due to the temperature enhanced interdiffusion.As T, increased to 23OoC, sample 3, the film was mainly constituted by polycrystalline a -Fe.In this case the atoms of the film have enough kinetic energy to move or rearrange themselves to reach a low energitical state, and consequently more and larger polycrystalline a -iron clusters were formed.
The MOssbauer spectra were recorded at room temperature for three samples with the y -ray perpendicular to the film plane.For sample 1, the magnetization is in plane corresponding to the relative intensity ratio: 3:4:1:1:4:3 and hyperfine field H ~3 2 9 k O e .For sample 2, the relative intensity changed to: 3:1.2:1:1:1.2:3with the hyperfine field H r 3 2 5 k O e corresponding to amorphous SmFe alloy clusters with a weak perpendicular anisotropy.As T, increased to 23OoC, the magnetization is randomly orientated with the relative intensity 3:2:1:1:2:3 and the Hhf53 3 OkOe, indica ti ng polycrystal Ii nc CL -Fe.
The low and high field magnelic mcasurcnients for sample 1 and sample 3 are in full agreement n i t h the existence of a -iron clusters.The zero field cooled and field cooled magnetization of sample 2 shows clearly a maximum centred at Txl50K corresponding to the blocking of the magnetization vector of the SmFe clusters.

Two dimensional
Whcre Hes =2A/(%Ra2).The magnetization data M(H) of sample 2 were well fitted by the 1I& law at low magnetic field regime (0.5 to 3kOe), Fig. 2 Let Sl/2 and S2 be the slopes of M versus H-ll2 and H-2 for the low field and high field regimes respectively.The magnetization law for the whole magnctic field regime can be presented as Eq. ( 3 This formula has been used to estract C(s) from the magnetization law in DyFeB amorphous alloy [4].In Fig. 1, we show the fit of the magnetization curve using C(s) = exp(-x2) (line).From this fit, we got H,,=10.2kOe.
The different properties of these samples are due to the different substrate temperature, which affects strongly the mechanism of film growth during film deposition process.
Our SmFe alloy formed at interfaces behaves as a three dimensional random magnet.I ACKNOWLEDGMENT X.X.Zhang thanks "DGICYT" for financial support.
deposited onto very thin Kapton foils with two electron beam evaporators in a vacuum chamber (= lo-' Torr) at different substrate temperatures.The samples correspond to the following composition: p 4 3 A )/Sm(2A )Ix, with the substrate temperature T,=40, 150, 230OC.The evaporation rate of the materials was 0.5,2/s, measured by a quartz crystal oscillator.The structure of samples was examined by X-ray diffraction (Cu-K a ).Magnetic properties were measured by MOssbauer spectroscopy and a SHE-SQUID in the temperature range from 5K to 300K at applied fields up to 5.4 Teslas.
Fig. 2 (a) Low field regime in approaching to magnetization saturation for sample 2; (b) High field regime in approching to magnetization saturation for sample 2.