Magnetism of uranium/iron multilayers: II. Magnetic properties

Well-defined U/Fe multilayers of varying layer thicknesses and bilayer repeat numbers were prepared by a dc magnetron sputtering method. Polarized neutron reflectometry, off-specular neutron diffraction and magnetic moment measurements were used to determine the physical properties of the multilayers leading to an evaluation of the magnetic moments associated with the U and Fe atoms. The multilayers exhibit ferromagnetic behaviour with the easy axis in the plane of the multilayer. The saturation magnetization was found to increase with increasing Fe-layer thickness and the magnetic moment averaged over the structured iron layers was below the bulk value of 2.2 μB/Fe atom. No anomalies were observed in the magnetization from 4.2 to 375 K in temperature-dependent scans at 0.005 and 0.1 T or in magnetic field scans from 0 to 7 T at 4.2 and 295 K. The hysteresis curves exhibited a small degree of perpendicular magnetic anisotropy. The Curie temperatures for the multilayers were.determined from ac susceptibility measurements and were found to be less than the bulk Fe value of 1043 K