Magnetic and Magnetooptical Properties of Fe/V Compositionally Modulated Multilayer Films

The magnetic and magnetooptical properties of Fe/V compositionally modulated multilayer films (CMFs) prepared by rf sputtering were investigated. The crystallinity and periodicity of the Fe/V CMFs were inferior to those of Co/Pt, Fe/Pt, Co/Au and Fe/Au CMFs. The saturation magnetization (M
_s
) decreases rapidly with decreasing modulation length (D) below approximately 50 Å. Enhancement of the polar Kerr rotation angle (θ
_K
) such as appeared in Co/Pt and Fe/Cu CMFs was not observed. The shape of the θ
_K
spectra is similar to the spectrum of Fe film, and shows no change even when D and the thickness ratio of Fe/V are varied. Moreover, the calculated θ
_K
spectra are in good agreement with experimental results. This suggests that the interface layers in Fe/V CMF contribute insignificantly to the polar Kerr effect.