A phenomenological theory of magneto-optic Kerr effect (MOKE) is presented to illustrate the connection between the magnetization and the polarization of light reflection in an isotropic medium. An apparatus measuring the MOKE of magnetic medium was designed and constructed. The surface magneto-optic Kerr effect (SMOKE) of a magnetic multilayer is a measurement of the average magnetization of several layers within the penetration depth of the light. / SMOKE measurements on a series of sputtered $ rm Ni sb{80}Co sb{20}15 A$/CU$(t sb{Cu}),$ where $t sb{Cu}$ is the thickness of Cu spacer layer, multilayers confirms that the coupling strength in these multilayers oscillates from antiferromagnetic (AF) coupling to ferromagnetic coupling as a function of Cu spacer layer thickness. Low-angle x-ray diffraction and SMOKE measurements on a series of AF-coupled $ rm (Ni sb{80}Co sb{20}15 A$/Cu20A) $ times$ N multilayers with bilayer numbers N ranging from 8 to 100 shows that cumulative interface roughness increases with increasing N, as do the saturation field and coercivity. This is possibly due to the out-of-plane anisotropy associated with cumulative interface roughness in multilayers. / An AF-coupled $ rm (Ni sb{70}Co sb{30}15 A$/Cu20A) $ times$ 10 was continually annealed up to 400$ sp circ$C in several steps, and the magnetic behaviour of the sample was evaluated as a function of annealing temperatures. $ rm (Ni sb{70}Co sb{30}15 A$/CU20A/Ni$ rm sb{70}Co sb{30} A$/CU20A) $ times$ 5 multilayer was used for investigating the AF coupling between magnetic layers of unequal thicknesses. Finally, an AF-coupled $ rm (Ni sb{70}Co sb{30}15 A$/Cu20A/Ni$ rm sb{70}Co sb{30}15 A$/Cu35A) $ times$ 5 multilayer was sputtered and used to study the magnetization of an AF-coupled multilayer with two different coupling strengthes.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.22775 |
| Date | January 1994 |
| Creators | Meng, Xiadong |
| Contributors | Muir, W. B. (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Science (Department of Physics.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001447479, proquestno: MM05599, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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