Magnetic properties of nanocrystalline Co/Ti and Co/Zr multilayers

It is shown that the Co sublayers grow in the soft magnetic nanocrystalline phase up to a critical thickness d approximate to 3 and 2.8 nm for Co/Ti a nd Co/Zr MLs, respectively. The rapid decrease in the interlayer exchange c oupling could be explained by its strong damping due to formation of a non- magnetic quasi-amorphous Co-Ti and Co-Zr alloy layer at the interfaces. The nanocrystalline 2.2 nm-Co/2 nm-Ti ML shows a weak 90 degrees coupling near the transition zone from ferromagnetic to zero coupling.