Spin Flopping in Gd/Fe and Gd/Co Multilayers Prepared by an Evaporation with Oblique Incidences

Gd/Fe and Gd/Co multilayer films, prepared by electron beam evaporation with oblique incidence, exhibit a uniaxial magnetic anisotropy in the film plane owing to anisotropic atomic coupling at the interfaces. When the bilayer thicknesses are between 16 and 22 Å for Gd/Fe and are 12 Å for Gd/Co, the M-H loop in an easy-axis direction at room temperature is rectangular under low fields, and an abrupt increase in magnetization, i.e. spin flopping, occurs at about 0.5 kOe in Gd/Fe multilayer film and near 1.0 kOe in Gd/Co multilayer film.