Compensation temperatures and composition homogeneity in amorphous Gd Co1− films

Abstract Amorphous GdxCo1−x films have been prepared to study the effects of composition gradients on the magnetic properties. Very small chemical variations result in remarkable effects on the saturation magnetization values and the hysteresis loops for a temperature interval around the nominal compensation temperature. Microscopic magnetic parameters deduced from films with well-defined composition homogeneity in terms of the mean-field theory have been used to evaluate the dispersion in x content from direct magnetization measurements.