Therefore, the question fosters in mind that how we can probe the magnetic properties of one particular layer of multilayered thin films.

The answer is the use of magneto-optical system based measurements.

MOKE microscope:

Magneto-optic Kerr effect (MOKE) or the surface magneto-optic Kerr effect (SMOKE) is one of the magneto-optic effects, which describes the changes to light reflected from a magnetized surface. It is used in materials science research in devices such as the Kerr microscope to investigate the magnetization structure of materials.

Figure 34.01 depicts a schematic view of conventional MOKE set up. The light beam from a laser is polarized using a linear polarizer, while a photo elastic modulator (PEM) superimposes periodic quarter-wave retardation (± λ/4) to this beam before it reaches the sample.

After the beam is reflected from the sample, the light beam is again made to pass through a linear analyzer and then the signal is collected at the detector.

Figure 34.01: Schematic drawing of MOKE set up.