Magnetic resonance determination of the antiferromagnetic coupling of Fe layers through Cr.

Variable frequency ferromagnetic resonance (FMR) has been used to directly observe the coupled resonance modes in single-crystal Fe/Cr/Fe(001) sandwiches grown by molecular-beam epitaxy. Magnetization M and magnetoresistance measurements also were carried out on these samples, which exhibited antiferromagnetic (AF) layer alignment for 12<t(Cr)<25 A. The FMR data reveal two resonance modes with complex frequency dependences for the AF-aligned samples. The detailed FMR and M vs H behavior can be quantitatively explained by an AF coupling parameter J which has a thickness dependence peaked about t(Cr)=16 A