We report experimental observations of element- and buried interface-resolved magnetization reversals in an oppositely exchange-biased trilayer structure by soft x-ray resonant Kerr rotation measurements. Not only Co-, Ni-, Fe-specific exchange-biased loops but also interfacial uncompensated (UC) Fe reversal loops coupled to the individual Co and NiFe layers are separately observed. From the experimental results interpreted with the help of the model simulations of soft x-ray resonant Kerr rotation, the effective thicknesses of interfacial UC regions at the buried interfaces of both and are found to be and , respectively. The depth sensitivity as well as element specificity of the x-ray resonant Kerr effect offer an elegant way into the investigations of element- and depth-resolved magnetization reversals of ferromagnetic ultrathin regions at buried interfaces in multicomponent multilayer films.
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The sense and magnitude of contrasts are found to be remarkably altered with as well as in the vicinity of the resonance regions, which can lead to large variations of the size of contrasts even with a variation of .
In the model calculations, we considered which layers contribute to the positively shifted Fe loops. The simulated loops agree well with experimental results if both the NiFe and UC2 region are taken into account.
