Giant magnetoresistance (GMR) of up to 65% at room temperature has been achieved in Cu/Co multilayers, far exceeding the 2.5% arising from permalloy, which is presently used in magnetoresistive read heads. The GMR effect is not restricted to multilayered structures only and has been also discovered in heterogeneous CulxCox thin films. At present, experimentally determined and statistically significant microstructural parameters, e.g., Co particle size distribution, composition of Co particles and Co matrix concentration, are still not available for Cu1-xCox films or melt-spun ribbons because of two reasons. First, the small difference in atomic scattering factors of Cu and Co and secondly, the Ashby-Brown contrast, which is expected for coherent precipitates, is not observed. The large volume fraction of Co precipitates results in overlap and cancellation of their strain fields. To overcome limitations in imaging Co precipitates, melt-spun AU1-xCox ribbons have been investigated regarding their GMR. AuCo has a similar phase diagram (Fig. 1) compared with CuCo, but it has the advantage of a large difference in atomic scattering factors of Au and Co. As a consequence Co-rich precipitates can be directly identified by their mass contrast.
Microstructure and Magnetic Properties of Grain Refined Pr2Co14B Melt-Spun Ribbons