The Fermi surfaces of Metallic Alloys and the Oscillatory Magnetic Coupling between Magnetic Layers separated by such Alloy Spacers

TL;DR

This paper reviews the theory of oscillatory magnetic coupling in metallic multilayers with alloy spacers, demonstrating how oscillation frequencies relate to Fermi surface features, and proposing measurements as a cost-effective way to probe alloy electronic structures.

Contribution

It provides explicit calculations linking oscillation frequencies to Fermi surface extremal vectors in various alloy spacers, enhancing understanding of magnetic coupling mechanisms.

Findings

Oscillation frequencies correspond to extremal Fermi surface vectors.

Measurement of these frequencies can probe alloy Fermi surfaces.

Explicit calculations for specific alloy systems are presented.

Abstract

We review the theory of oscillatory magnetic coupling in Metallic Multilayers across alloy spacers. We illustrate the relationship between the frequencies of the oscillations and the extremal caliper vectors of the Fermi surface of the spacer by explicit calculations for Cu$_{(1-x)}$Ni$_x$, Cr$_{(1-x)}$V$_x$ and Cr$_{(1-x)}$Mo$_x$ alloys. We argue the measurement of the frequencies of such oscillations can be an extremely useful and cheap probe of the Fermi surface of random alloys.