Magnetic behavior and structure of compositionally modulated Cu-Ni thin films

Abstract

A series of modulated Cu-Ni films has been prepared with varying wavelength, $\ensuremath{\lambda}$, and amplitude, $A$, of the compositional modulation. The films have coherent interfaces between the copper and nickel regions over at least the range 16 $<\ensuremath{\lambda}<$ 120 \AA{} and several of the films are essentially single crystals containing growth faults. A model for the magnetic behavior based on the assumption that each layer is not significantly different from a random alloy of the same composition agrees with the measurements of the average magnetic moment and the Curie temperature. This suggests the absence of significant two-dimensional effects.