F. Petroff - Böcker

The Symposium on Magnetic Ultrathin Films, Multilayers andSurfaces, hosted by the European Materials Research Society, washeld at the Palais de la Musique et des Congré inStrasbourg, France on June 4-7, 1996. Its central theme was therelationship of magnetic properties and device performance tostructure at the nano and micrometer length scale. Research onthe magnetism of surfaces, ultrathin films and multilayers hasincreased dramatically during recent years. This development wastriggered by the discovery of coupling between ferromagneticlayers across nonmagnetic spacer layers and of the giantmagnetoresistance effect in systems of reduced dimension usingvarious micro and nanofabrication techniques has become a subjectof special interest. It is certainly the promising applicationpotential of these effects in new magnetic recording devicegeometries which causes this intensive research, which is doneboth by companies and at universities and researchinstitutes.

A selection of invited and contributed paperspresented at the Symposium and accepted for publication iscontained in this volume. The contents of these proceedings areorganized into seven sections.

A. Nanowires, Nanoparticles,Nanostructuring

B. Ultrathin Films and Surfaces,Characterization

C. Giant Magnetoresistance

D. Coupling,Tunneling

E. Growth, Structure, Magnetism

F. Growth,Structure, Magnetoresistance

G. Coupling, Magnetic processes,Magneto-optics.

The first four sections contain invited andoral contributed papers in the listed research domains, while thelast three sections contain the contributions presented duringthree large poster sessions.