Magnetism of rare-earth<i>–</i>transition-metal nanoscale multilayers

Abstract

Systematic studies have been performed on the layer-thickness dependence of magnetization and anisotropy for amorphous rare-earth--transition-metal compositionally modulated films with characteristic bilayer thicknesses (\ensuremath{\lambda}) in the 0.6--3-nm (6--30 A\r{}) range. The results permit for the first time the development of a detailed model for the magnetization and perpendicular magnetic anisotropy as a function of \ensuremath{\lambda}. Single-ion anisotropy is shown to be the major contributor to the perpendicular anisotropy for Dy/Co and similar systems.