Magnetic multilayers is a rapidly growing and multidisciplinary field of research. The purpose of this book is to give a unified overview of recent progress, giving special emphasis to the most important industrial applications. A general introduction is followed by six chapters that describe a wide range of physical aspects, together with experimental and theoretical methods. Scientists and students alike will benefit from the comprehensive discussion of numerous devices and their physics. As the technology matures, these devices, for example spin valves and magnetic random access memories, are likely to become widely used.

The Symposium on Magnetic Ultrathin Films, Multilayers and
Surfaces, hosted by the European Materials Research Society, was
held at the Palais de la Musique et des Congre in
Strasbourg, France on June 4-7, 1996. Its central theme was the
relationship of magnetic properties and device performance to
structure at the nano and micrometer length scale. Research on
the magnetism of surfaces, ultrathin films and multilayers has
increased dramatically during recent years. This development was
triggered by the discovery of coupling between ferromagnetic
layers across nonmagnetic spacer layers and of the giant
magnetoresistance effect in systems of reduced dimension using
various micro and nanofabrication techniques has become a subject
of special interest. It is certainly the promising application
potential of these effects in new magnetic recording device
geometries which causes this intensive research, which is done
both by companies and at universities and research
institutes.

A selection of invited and contributed papers
presented at the Symposium and accepted for publication is
contained in this volume. The contents of these proceedings are
organized into seven sections.

A. Nanowires, Nanoparticles,
Nanostructuring

B. Ultrathin Films and Surfaces,
Characterization

C. Giant Magnetoresistance

D. Coupling,
Tunneling

E. Growth, Structure, Magnetism

F. Growth,
Structure, Magnetoresistance

G. Coupling, Magnetic processes,
Magneto-optics.

The first four sections contain invited and
oral contributed papers in the listed research domains, while the
last three sections contain the contributions presented during
three large poster sessions.

This unified overview of recent progress in a growing, multi-disciplinary field places special emphasis on the industrial applications of magnetic multilayered materials. The text describes a wide range of physical aspects, together with experimental and theoretical methods.