Magnetic properties of exchange-coupled trilayers of amorphous rare-earth-cobalt alloys

From amorphous thin films from alloys of rare earths (Gd, Sm), yttrium or zirconium with cobalt we have prepared trilayers with very clean interfaces appropriate for the study of magnetic coupling. The sandwiches were typically Y-Co/Gd-Co/Y-Co and Sm-Co/X/Sm-Co' (X=Gd-Co, Co-Zr, Co). The three individual layers are coupled magnetically by exchange interactions between cobalt moments throughout the entire sample. This coupling associated with the specific properties of the given alloy (magnetic moment, anisotropy, coercivity) leads to ferrimagnetic or ferromagnetic structures of the magnetization of adjacent layers and to novel magnetization processes. For systems consisting of magnetically hard external layers with different coercivities and a soft central layer (Sm-Co/X/Sm-Co', X=Gd-Co, Co-Zr), the influence of the central layer close-quote s thickness and type of the material on coupling and magnetization processes have been studied quantitatively. Numerical simulations using a one-dimensional model for describing the magnetization processes observed in sandwich systems fit the magnetization curves of these model systems particularly well. copyright 1997 The American Physical Society