Magnetic Properties and Interfacial Anisotropies of Pt/Co/AlO_xPerpendicularly Magnetized Thin Films

Abstract

Thin films of Pt/Co/AlO x , showing perpendicular magnetic anisotropy, were grown by magnetron sputtering with the AlO x formed by oxidation of thin Al layers using an oxygen atom source. Films were studied as a function of Pt thickness and Al oxidation and films which showed full remanence and sharp switching coercive were achieved. In order to prevent further oxidation of the interface in ambient conditions we use a double Al growth and oxidation process. Magneto optical Kerr effect and vibrating sample magnetometry were used to analyse these films. We find an effective perpendicular anisotropy of 2.0 x 10 6 erg/cm 3 , with the majority of the perpendicular anisotropy coming from the Pt/Co interface. From the sweep rate dependence of the coercivity we are able to extract an activation volume of 4.3 ± 0.5 x 10-18 cm 3 , similar to other Co-based perpendicular systems.

Influences of Crystal-Field and Interlayer Coupling Interactions on Dynamic Phase Diagrams of a Mixed-Spin (3/2,2) Bilayer System

“…, (5) where ς = ωt, T = (βJ 1 ) −1 , h = H 0 /J 1 , d A = D A /J 1 and Ω = τ ω, z = 4 and ω = 2πv are taken. The mean-field dynamical equation for the average magnetizations of m 1 B , m 2 A , and m 2 B can be similarly obtained as…”

“…(see Refs. [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17] and references there in). Theoretically, the spin-1/2 (see Refs.…”

Relative strength of perpendicular magnetic anisotropy at bottom and top interfaces in Pt/Co/MgO trilayers

“…Between these two interfaces, Mansell et al demonstrated that the bottom Pt=Co interface, where Co is hybridized with Pt (an element showing a strong SOC), has the highest contribution to the PMA. 11) On the other hand, Manchon et al gave more emphasis to the top Co=MO x interface, where the charge transfer between Co and oxygen induces a strong PMA. 6,7) However, in the absence of a quantitative analysis on the individual PMA strengths at the two interfaces of Pt=Co and Co=MO x , it is not possible to predict which interface gives the dominant contribution to the total PMA.…”