Effects of interlayer coupling in a magnetic trilayer system

Abstract Magnetic properties of a trilayer consisting of two different magnetic films separated by a nonmagnetic spacer are investigated by means of the variational cumulant expansion. The long-range interlayer interaction as well as the nearest neighbor coupling including the anisotropy and external fields are considered. The mean magnetization and ordering temperatures are calculated for various interlayer-coupling energies in qualitative agreement with experiments.