A cross-sectional high-resolution transmission electron microscopy study of electrodeposited Ni-Cu/Cu multilayers

This work is an extension of our previous structural study performed by conventional transmission electron microscopy (TEM) on electrodeposited Ni-Cu/Cu multilayers exhibiting giant magnetoresistance (GMR). It could be established from the present atomic-resolution structural studies that (i) the layered structure found by conventional TEM to be flat and smooth shows an interface roughness spread over a few atomic monolayers; (ii) the atomic planes cross, in most cases, continuously the Ni-Cu/Cu interface, i,e., forming a coherent superlattice; (iii) the atomic planes exhibit a periodic distortion due to the unrelaxed strain induced by the lattice mismatch between the magnetic and non-magnetic constituent layers. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science S.A.