INTERLAYER EXCHANGE COUPLING - EFFECT OF ALLOYING

The effect of disorder in magnetic layers, in the spacer, and at inter faces between them on periods, amplitudes, and phases of oscillations of interlayer exchange coupling in magnetic multilayers is studied the oretically on the ab initio level. We employ the spin-polarized surfac e Green function technique within the tight-binding linear muffin-tin orbital method and the Lloyd formulation of the interlayer exchange co upling. The coherent potential approximation is used to describe the e ffect of alloying. The calculations are significantly simplified by em ploying the vertex-cancellation theorem. Numerical results illustratin g the effect of various kinds of disorder in the system on the propert ies of the interlayer exchange coupling are presented.