Giant magnetoresistance in electrodeposited Co87Fe13/Cu compositionally modulated alloys

In this paper we report on the giant magnetoresistance effect and oscillato ry exchange coupling in electrodeposited Co87Fe13/Cu compositionally modula ted alloys. The alloys are compositionally modulated over nanometre length scales with ferromagnetic CO87Fe13 (Cu) alloy layers and non-magnetic Cu la yers. Co87Fe13/Cu multilayered thin films were electrodeposited from a sing le sulfate plating solution containing all metallic ions of interest under computer-controlled potentiostat switching on (111)-textured Cu buffers pre viously evaporated on Si(lll). Electrodeposits present a polycrystalline ch aracter with coexistence of face-centred cubic (fcc) and hexagonal close-pa cked (hcp) structures. Magnetoresistance effects as high as 8% were observe d at room temperature. The dependence of the magnetoresistance effect on Cu spacer layer thickness shows an oscillation period around 1.0 nm.