Spin polarization in p-bands of copper in cobalt/copper multilayers

Abstract We have sputtered copper/cobalt multilayers on kapton substrates for magnetic circular X-ray dichroism (MXD). Spectra recorded at Cu K-edge indicate a magnetic signal depending on copper thicknesses. This is experimental evidence for the magnetic polarization of copper in cobalt/copper multilayers. We present a realistic description of this effect based upon the naive RKKY theory.