Tuning thermo-magnetic properties of dilute-ferromagnet multilayers using RKKY interaction

Abstract

We demonstrate a 20-fold enhancement in the strength of the RKKY interlayer exchange in dilute-ferromagnet/normal-metal multilayers by incorporating ultrathin Fe layers at the interfaces. Additionally, the resulting increase in the interface magnetic polarization profoundly affects the finite-size effects, sharpening the Curie transition of the multilayer, while allowing to separately tune its Curie temperature via intralayer magnetic dilution. These results should be useful for designing functional materials for applications in magneto-caloric micro-refrigeration and thermally-assisted spin-electronics.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure