Interface roughness/intermixing and magnetic moments in a Fe/Co(001) superlattice

The superiority of a local probe method over diffraction methods in determi ning, the interface details is demonstrated by a comparison between Fe/Co a nd Fe/V superlattice data. From Mossbauer spectra, the higher interface qua lity in the Fe/Co superlattice was evident although the x-ray diffraction d ata were similar in the two cases. In fact, by comparison of the details of the Mossbauer spectrum for the Fe/Co case with published values of the mag netic hyperfine field for iron in cobalt no detectable roughness/intermixin g was found. From the variation of the iron magnetic hyperfine field as a f unction of location of the iron atoms, with respect to the interface, the i ndividual iron magnetic moments could be derived. The magnitudes of the mag netic moments thus obtained correlate well with recent calculated values.