Ellipsometric, Magneto-Optic, and Magnetic Properties of Sputtered Rare Earth-Transition Metal Multilayers

ABSTRACTEllipsometric and magneto-optical properties of amorphous Dy (3.5 Å) and amorphous Fe (25 Å to 12.5 Å) multilayers were investigated over the spectral range from 3000 Å to 8000 Å in magnetic fields to 0.21 Tesla. In this range of layer thickness the magnetic anisotropy is vertical. Kerr rotations, θk, were weakly spectrally dependent, and as large as 0.1 degrees. The diagonal and off-diagonal elements of the optical dielectric response function were determined over the full spectral range, and were found to be dependent on iron layer thickness.