Structural anisotropy of Tb/Fe multilayers

Abstract

We have investigated the local structural anisotropy of Tb/Fe multilayers using linear polarized synchrotron radiation. X-ray absorption measurements were performed at Fe K edge (7.1 keV) using normal and glancing angle incident photon. From the Fe extended x-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS), the local structural anisotropy was found for all multilayers as a slight difference of oscillation amplitude between the two incident directions. From the Fourier transformed EXAFS spectra, it is found that the local structural anisotropy shows the maximum at bilayer period of about 1 nm, where perpendicular magnetic anisotropy also shows the maximum value in various rare-earth/transition metal multilayers.