Superconductivity as a probe of magnetic switching and ferromagnetic stability in Nb/Ni multilayers

The temperature and field dependences of the AC and DC magnetic moment of superconducting and ferromagnetic Nb/Ni multilayers were measured using a SQUID magnetometer with magnetic field applied parallel to the multilayer plane. Periodic kinks in the superconducting upper critical field are evidence...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: De Long, LE, Kryukov, S. A., Bosomtwi, A., Xu, WT, González Herrera, Elvira María, Navarro Palma, Elena, Villegas, J. E., Vicent López, José Luis, Yu, Ct, Pechan, MJ
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2006
País:España
Institución:Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM)
Repositorio:Docta Complutense
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:docta.ucm.es:20.500.14352/52128
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/52128
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:538.9
Layered superconductors
Surface-barrier
Flux lattices
Thin-films
Superlattices
Temperature
Transition
Field
Resonance
Interplay
Física de materiales
Física del estado sólido
2211 Física del Estado Sólido
Descripción
Sumario:The temperature and field dependences of the AC and DC magnetic moment of superconducting and ferromagnetic Nb/Ni multilayers were measured using a SQUID magnetometer with magnetic field applied parallel to the multilayer plane. Periodic kinks in the superconducting upper critical field are evidence for nucleation of a hierarchy of Abrikosov vortex lattices aligned parallel to the multilayer. Small cusps in the low-field, isothermal DC magnetization are evidence that supercurrents are sensitive to extremely small changes in the Ni layer magnetization. Smooth ferromagnetic hysteresis is observed in the normal state, but is supplanted below the superconducting transition by two reproducible discontinuities that indicate magnetic switching of the Ni layers is tightly coupled to the supercurrents. The discontinuities are attributed to the non-dipole character of the moment near switching fields and, therefore, cannot be analyzed by standard magnetometer software. Ferromagnetic resonance spectra were measured in parallel and perpendicular DC magnetic fields at room temperature and 4.2 K, and resulting data suggest that Ni layers interact magnetically in the superconducting state.