The combined effect of temperature and disorder on interlayer exchange coupling in magnetic multilayers

TL;DR

This paper investigates how temperature and disorder in the spacer layer affect interlayer exchange coupling in magnetic multilayers, using ab initio calculations and Green function techniques.

Contribution

It introduces a combined theoretical approach to analyze temperature and disorder effects on interlayer exchange coupling in magnetic multilayers.

Findings

Temperature and disorder significantly influence IEC strength.

The method accurately predicts IEC variations in Co/Cu-based trilayers.

Results provide insights for designing magnetic multilayer devices.

Abstract

We study the combined effect of temperature and disorder in the spacer on the interlayer exchange coupling. The temperature dependence is treated on ab initio level. We employ the spin-polarized surface Green function technique within the tight-binding linear muffin-tin orbital method and the Lloyd formulation of the IEC. The integrals involving the Fermi-Dirac distribution are calculated using an efficient method based on representation of integrands by a sum of complex exponentials. Application is made to Co/Cu_{100-x}M_x/Co(001) trilayers (M=Zn, Au, and Ni) with varying thicknesses of the spacer.