Influence of a non-magnetic underlayer on the magnetic anisotropy of ultra-thin Co sandwiches

Author

Engel, Brad N. ; Marlière, Christian ; Falco, Charles M.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Phys., Arizona Univ., Tucson, AZ, USA

Volume

31

Issue

6

fYear

1995

fDate

11/1/1995 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

4080

Lastpage

4084

Abstract

We have used in situ polar Kerr effect measurements to study the magnetic anisotropy of MBE-grown Cu/Au/Co/Au sandwich structures. We reported earlier that the magnitude of the Au/Co/Au perpendicular anisotropy is strongly peaked at ~1 atomic layer Au overlayer coverage. We report here extensions of this work to investigate the influence on anisotropy of a confined ultra-thin non-magnetic underlayer placed at one of the Co interfaces. Sandwich structures were deposited in a stepped-wedge geometry providing multiple underlayer thicknesses for each sample. For the case of an underlayer wedge of Au, e.g. Cu/Au(x)/Co/Au, we find a sharp minimum in the perpendicular anisotropy at ~1 atomic layer of Au. This anisotropy behavior is opposite to that of a Au overlayer deposited on a Co film

Keywords

Kerr magneto-optical effect; cobalt; copper; gold; magnetic epitaxial layers; magnetic multilayers; perpendicular magnetic anisotropy; Cu-Au-Co-Au; Cu/Au/Co/Au sandwich structure; MBE grown; nonmagnetic underlayer; perpendicular magnetic anisotropy; polar Kerr effect; stepped-wedge geometry; Anisotropic magnetoresistance; Atomic layer deposition; Geometrical optics; Gold; Magnetic anisotropy; Magnetic films; Magnetic materials; Magnetization; Molecular beam epitaxial growth; Sandwich structures;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Magnetics, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9464

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/20.489868

Filename

489868