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Abstract—The structure and magnetoresistive properties of Ta(5 nm)/NiFeCr(5 nm)/[FM(tFM)/Cu(2.2 nm)]n/ Ta(5 nm) superlattices prepared by magnetron sputtering are studied in this work. The ferromagnetic layer thickness tFM is varied in a 1.1–1.5 nm range. The Co90Fe10, Co85Fe12Ni3, Co77Fe17Ni6, and Co70Fe20Ni10 alloys with an fcc structure and close saturation magnetization values are used as the ferromagnetic (FM) materials. It is shown that, as the Ni and Fe contents in the CoFeNi alloy increase, the magnetoresistance of superlattices containing eight bilayers remains high and equal to 24–28%; in this case, the twofold decrease in the hysteresis occurs. As the number of bilayers in the superlattices, which contain CoFeNi alloys differing in composition increases to 12, the close values of magnetoresistance 30–31% are obtained. The correlation between the saturation magnetization of the ferromagnetic material of superlattice layers and maximum value of magnetoresistance is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the results of the investigation of the structure and magnetoresistive properties of [Co90Fe10/Cu]n superlattices deposited on (Ni80Fe20)60Cr40 and Ta/(Ni80Fe20)60Cr40 buffer layers by magnetron sputtering. Our study has found that a Ta sublayer added to the (Ni80Fe20)60Cr40 buffer layer increases the degree of perfection of the 〈111〉 texture. This leads to a substantial decrease in the magnetoresistance hysteresis. The optimization of the composition of multilayered structure allowed us to obtain the superlattice with the relative magnetoresistance magnitude, which at room temperature reaches 81% and, at liquid helium temperature, exceeds 160%. The studied superlattices exhibited high temperature stability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]