  Magnetometry and neutron scattering have been used to study the magnetic
properties of pressure graded Co/Pd multilayers. The grading of the multilayer
structure was done by varying the deposition pressure during sputtering of the
samples. Magnetic depth profiling by polarized neutron reflectometry directly
shows that for pressure-graded samples, the magnetization changes significantly
from one pressure region to the next, while control samples sputtered at
uniform pressure exhibit essentially uniform magnetic depth profiles.
Complementary magnetometry results suggest that the observed graded magnetic
profiles are due in part to a decrease in saturation magnetization for regions
deposited at progressively higher pressure. Increased deposition pressure is
shown to increase coercivity, and for graded samples, the absence of discrete
steps in the hysteresis loops implies exchange coupling among regions deposited
at different pressures.
