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Exchange Coupling in Magnetic Multilayers

The magnetic moments of two magnetic layers separated by a non-magnetic metallic spacer layer align themselves parallel or antiparallel, depending on the thickness of the intervening non-magnetic layer. The effect is called oscillatory exchange coupling and it is one of the rare manifestations of directly observable quantum interference effects. We proposed that the effect is due to confinement of electrons in a quantum well formed in the nonmagnetic layer by the spin-dependent potentials of the magnetic layers. This is now the accepted explanation of the oscillatory exchange coupling. Detailed description of our quantum well theory can be found in: PRL 74, 3696 (1995), PRB 56, 11797 (1997).