Influence of interface mixing on the magnetic properties of Ni/Pt multilayers

Motivated by existing experimental data, we study here the influence of interface mixing on the magnetic behavior of Ni-6/Pt-5(111) multilayers. In the present ab initio calculations the mixing, restricted to the interface layers, was simulated by ordered two-dimensional Ni-Pt lattices. Two different degrees of mixing of the components at the interface were considered-namely, 25% and 50%. The perfect interface was also calculated and for some of the systems orbital moments were obtained. We find that interface mixing explains rather well the observed magnetic moment profile for Ni sites. But even with the inclusion of orbital contributions, the theoretical results tend to underestimate the induced moment at the Pt sites found experimentally.