Magneto-optical investigation of Co/Mo/Co thin-film systems

Abstract Results on the magneto-optical investigation of magnetic and magneto-optical properties of Co/Mo/Co trilayers are presented. It was revealed that the examined trilayers have an in-plane magnetization easy axis and its easy axis saturation field, H S , oscillates as a function of the Mo layer thickness. It was found that the period of these oscillations Λ depends on the Co layer thickness, t Co . In particular, Λ is equal to 1 and 1.2 nm for t Co = 2.5 and 5 nm, respectively. The obtained values of Λ correlate with computations performed with taking into account quantum size effects showing in a change of electronic structure of ultra-thin films as compared with that of bulk samples (a manifestation of so-called quantum well states). It was found that for all Co/Mo/Co trilayers, the transverse Kerr effect (TKE) spectra are identical but the values of TKE depend on the thickness of both the magnetic and nonmagnetic layers.