Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 February 2011
The contribution of strains to anomalous surface and interface magnetic anisotropies cannot be analyzed quantitatively without knowledge of the ME coupling coefficients there. We have measured the ME coupling coefficients Bs near the surface (~0.5nm) of two amorphous alloys, Fe77Cr6B17 (with bulk magnetostriction λs = +7 × 10−6) and Co76Cr4B20 (λs = -3.8 × 10−6) and found them to differ significantly from the bulk values Bb: Fe-base, Bs = -1.7 × 105 J/m3 (57% of Bb) and Co-base, Bs = 5.8 × 105 J/m3 (three times Bb).