Experimental observation of magnetically dead layers in Ni/Pt multilayer films - art. no. 052406

We report experimental evidence of the magnetically dead layers of Ni in sp utter-grown Ni/Pt multilayers, studied with room-temperature magnetic circu lar dichroism and temperature-dependent superconducting quantum interferenc e device magnetometry. The behavior of Curie temperature T-c vs Ni sublayer thickness x results in T-c = 0 at x = 4.0 Angstrom, indicating the existen ce of magnetically dead Ni layers. For a sample x = 2.2 Angstrom, no magnet ic moment is observed within experimental error over the whole temperature range of 2 to 300 K.