Study of Fe/Mn/Fe multilayers by means of scanning tunneling microscopy/spectroscopy

To elucidate the magnetic properties of a magnetic multilayer film, an understanding of the local geometry, electronic structure, and possible intermixing at the interfaces is of utmost importance. By gradually increasing the Fe coverage on the Mn(001) film, we obtained this information on the interface region by means of Auger spectroscopy and scanning tunneling microscopy/spectroscopy. Intermixed atoms and various geometries and density of states are found to exist in this system.