Abstract
The longitudinal generalized magneto-optical ellipsometry (GME) method is extended to the measurement of three-layer ultrathin magnetic films. In this work, the theory of the reflection matrix is introduced into the GME measurement to obtain the reflective matrix parameters of ultrathin multilayer magnetic films with different thicknesses. After that, a spectroscopic ellipsometry is used to determine the optical parameter and the thickness of every layer of these samples, then the magneto-optical coupling constant of the multilayer magnetic ultrathin film can be obtained. After measurements of a series of ultrathin Fe films, the results show that the magneto-optical coupling constant Q is independent of the thickness of the magnetic film. The magneto-optical Kerr rotations and ellipticity are measured to confirm the validity of this experiment. Combined with the optical constants and the Q constant, the Kerr rotations and ellipticity are calculated in theory. The results show that the theoretical curve fits very well with the experimental data.