OPTICAL AND MAGNETOOPTICAL CHARACTERIZATION OF FENI CU MULTILAYERS/

A series of [FeNi(1.7 nm)/Cu(t(Cu))](30)/Fe(10 nm) multilayers with th e range of t(Cu) from 0.36 nm to 4.32 nm deposited on glass substrates was studied by measuring the effective optical constants n and k, sat uration magnetooptical polar Kerr rotation theta(k) and ellipticity et a(k) and evaluating the effective complex off-diagonal elements of the dielectric tensor epsilon'(xy) and epsilon(xy)''. It was found that t he four primary quantities epsilon'(xy), epsilon(xy)'', n and k vary c oncurrently with respect to t(Cu), while the dependences of theta(k) a nd eta(k) on t(Cu) differ drastically. To explain this difference the contributions of both the real and imaginary parts of the off-diagonal dielectric tensor elements and the effect of complex optical constant s have to be considered. No obvious correlation was found between the variation of (n) over tilde, <(epsilon)over tilde (xy)> and the oscill ations of GMR of the multilayers.