Remote control of the Fe magnetic moment in magnetic heterostructures

In magnetic superlattices with interlayer exchange coupling, not only the coupling strength but also the magnetic moment of the ferromagnetic layer can be altered non-locally by modifying the electronic structure of the non-magnetic spacer layer. Specifically, changes of the electronic structure of the V spacer layers in Fe/V ( 001) superlattices are seen to affect the adjacent Fe layers. By reversibly loading the V layer with hydrogen, the magnetic moment of Fe increases, whereas the induced magnetic moment in V remains unchanged. The nature of this remote and non-local control of the magnetic moment is connected with a d-electron charge transfer and effective shift of the Fermi level relative to the d-bands of Fe and V, as elucidated on the basis of self-consistent electronic structure calculations.