Sa. Makhlouf et al., STRUCTURAL AND MAGNETIC-PROPERTIES OF FE-AG GRANULAR MATERIAL, Materials science & engineering. A, Structural materials: properties, microstructure and processing, 179, 1994, pp. 483-486
The structural and magnetic properties, particularly the giant magneto
resistance (GMR), of Fe-cluster-dispersed Ag films fabricated by an io
n cluster beam (ICB) technique are reported. The specimens were charac
terized by X-rav diffraction, small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) and
transmission electron microscopy (TEM). SAXS measurements show that th
e strong scattered intensities vary in shape and the radii of gyration
are in the range 7-16 nm depending on the composition. TEM observatio
ns also show a grain size of about 20-10 nm. Giant magnetoresistance o
f 40% was observed without any heat treatment of the specimens. The ma
gnetoresistance curves do not saturate even at 140 kOe although the ma
gnetization saturates at a very low magnetic field.