Analyzing in-plane magnetic anisotropy from surface morphology for amorphous films

A method is developed to analyze the in-plane magnetic anisotropy from surface morphology for amorphous films. The lateral sizes along radial direction (RRD) and tangent direction (RTD) of rotational substrate, which are extracted from the surface morphology of Co66.3Zr33.7 amorphous films, are used to calculate stress anisotropy energy Eσ. It is found that Eσ is consistent with the magnetic anisotropy energy Kμ for the samples deposited on Si (1 0 0) substrate and then a relationship Kμ ∝ 1/RRD − 1/RTD can be obtained. This method is sensitive to the initial state of substrate so its application range is discussed.