Magnetic moments near the sharp interfaces of ferromagnetic materials

Abstract

Ab initio theoretical calculations of magnetic moments near the interfaces of 3d ferromagnetic transition metals were performed using the self-consistent interface Greens function technique based on linear-muffin-tin orbitals (LMTO) method within the tight-binding (TB) and atomic sphere approximation together with local-spin-density approximation. We have also made supercell spin-polarized (SP) band structure calculations of (1 0 0) Fe/Co interface in the framework of TB-LMTO method, in order to take into account structural deformations and estimate their influence on the magnetic moments near that interface. Our results for layer magnetic moments near Fe/Co, Fe/Ni and Ni/Co interfaces did not show any oscillating behavior, contrary to the recent findings for the magnetic moment profile near Fe/Co interface deduced from the perturbed angular correlation measurements of hyperfine fields. The reasons for this disagreement have been discussed and a comparison with earlier experimental and theoretical results was made.