EXPERIMENTAL AND AB-INITIO THEORETICAL-STUDY OF OPTICAL AND MAGNETOOPTICAL PROPERTIES OF CO CU MULTILAYERS/

The polar Kerr rotation and ellipticity spectra were measured in the s pectral range 0.8-5.5 eV for a set of Co/Cu multilayered structures (M LS). The magneto-optical (MO) response of Co/Cu MLS being related to t he sigma(xy)-part of the optical conductivity tensor was obtained from the Kerr spectra and tensor component sigma(xx), determined by spectr oscopic ellipsometry. The self-consistent spin-polarized fully relativ istic linear muffin-tin orbital method within the local spin-density a pproximation was used to calculate the electronic structure, optical, and MO properties of some model Co/Cu MLS. Good agreement between the measured and calculated optical and MO spectra is observed. The role o f the spin-orbit coupling and exchange splitting at the Co and Cu site s, and the hybridization effects are examined and discussed. The spin- polarized Cu interface states appear to give a weak contribution to th e sigma(xy)- and Kerr spectra whereas the latter ones are strongly inf luenced by the Cu-dominated optical spectra structure. The results obt ained demonstrate that the MO properties of real large-period multilay ered structures can be quantitatively predicted from first-principles band-structure calculations.