Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 February 2011
The temperature dependence of the magnetic hyperfine (hf.) fields near the interfaces in epitaxial Fe/Cr and partly epitaxial Fe/Gd bilayers were measured using 57Fe Conversion Electron Mössbauer Spectroscopy (CEMS). It was found that the Fe-Cr magnetic interaction extends only up to the second Fe-neighbor at the Fe/Cr interface, whereas the interaction range at the Fe/Gd interface is four times larger. For comparison the hf. fields and magnetic moments for Fe/Cr multilayers were obtained performing LMTO (Linear Muffin Tin Orbital) band structure calculations. The Néel temperature of a thin Cr-interlayer in a Fe/Cr/Fe sandwich structure was determined in dependence of the Cr-layer thickness.