We review the present status of the experimental and theoretical research on the proximity effect in heterostructures composed of superconducting (S) and ferromagnetic (F) thin films. First, we discuss traditional effects originating from the oscillatory behavior of the superconducting pair wave function in the F-layer. Then, we concentrate on recent theoretical predictions for S/F layer systems. These are a) generation of odd triplet superconductivity in the F-layer and b) ferromagnetism induced in the S-layer below the superconducting transition temperature $T_{c}$ (inverse proximity effect). The second part of the review is devoted to discussion of experiments relevant to the theoretical predictions of the first part. In particular, we present results of measurements of the critical temperature $T_{c}$ as a function of the thickness of F-layers and we review experiments indicating existence of odd triplet superconductivity, cryptoferromagnetism and inverse proximity effect.
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