Effect of surface morphology on magnetization dynamics of cobalt ultrathin films: An in-situ investigation

Morphology induced large magnetic anisotropy in obliquely grown nanostructured thin film on nanopatterned substrate

“…Moreover, the growth of the film is on amorphous substrates, therefore it averages out the possibility of step, strain and substrate structure induced contribution to UMA in the films. Origin of UMA in polycrystalline and amorphous films is often related to the shape anisotropy in the thin films [2,6], generated through slanted columnar growth in the film at oblique angle deposition and by growing film on patterned substrates [29,33,65], where the direction of the easy axis is always aligned along the length of the structure due to the minimization of the magnetostatic energy along this direction.…”

“…actively participates to decide the magnetic energy of the system. Furthermore, in earlier works [2,30,33,34] on normal deposition of magnetic systems, such work was performed on rippled substrate having amplitude hardly 1-2 nm and wavelength less than 50 nm, so could not take advantage of shadowing, like done in the current work with a higher ripple amplitude. To the best of our knowledge, no reports have been published on a combined oblique-rippled magnetic system where microscopic domain dynamics along with detailed microstructural characterization by utilizing surface and buried interface sensitive X-ray scattering techniques are involved.…”

“…Interfacial morphology and symmetry breaking effect at the nanoscale strongly influence magnetic response of a material such as magnetic anisotropy [1], coercivity [2], magnetization reversal process [3], hysteresis [4], magneto-resistance [5]. In particular, magnetic anisotropy that relies on the preferred orientation of the spin alignment [6] of a thin film structure have extensively finds its application in the spintronics industry [7], perpendicular spin valves [8], magnetic tunnel junction devices [9] as well as other applications in magnetoelectronics [10], high-density storage media [11], and magnetic sensors [12].…”

“…As the topographic condition strongly influences thin film's growth, oblique incidence defocused broad ion beam surface patterning potentially offers an easy and inexpensive solution to prepattern the surface, which can be used as a template for the overgrowth structures [35][36][37]. Several discrete studies on morphology and magnetic anisotropy of the two distinguished systems, i.e., obliquely grown film on bare substrate and film deposited on the rippled patterned substrate, have been investigated thoroughly for different systems [2,5,6,24,30,32]. Few works on coupled oblique-ripple systems have been done in the recent past, emphasizing morphology or optical property [35,[38][39][40].…”

Electrochemical deposition and surface studies of Mo-oxide based thin films for CO2 sorption applications

“…The size, sharpness, and distribution of grains on the surface as they grow have been shown to alter the sheet resistance of films [196,197]. In-homogeneous distribution of grains on the Fe-Ni sample and small particles [196] may lead to poor conductivity.…”