Magnetic Anisotropy and Magnetoresistance Properties of Co/Au Multilayers

• Published in: IEEE transactions on magnetics Vol. 51; no. 2; pp. 1 - 6
• Main Authors: Rizal, Conrad, Moa, Belaid, Wingert, James, Shpyrko, Oleg G.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01-02-2015; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Annealing; Gold; Magnetic multilayers; Magnetic recording; Magnetism; Nonhomogeneous media; Perpendicular magnetic anisotropy; magnetic anisotropy (MA); magnetoresistance (MR); oblique angle deposition; Co/Au multilayer
• ISSN: 0018-9464; 1941-0069
• DOI: 10.1109/TMAG.2014.2352932

We report on the magnetic anisotropy (MA) and magnetoresistance (MR) properties of [Co (t Co )/Au (t Au )] N θ multilayers prepared by changing the incident angle of deposition, θ, thicknesses t Co and t Au of Co and Au layers, respectively, and number of bilayers, N, while keeping N × t Co fixed at 20 nm. Although all of the multilayers showed MAs at low applied magnetic fields, H, and room temperature, the ones deposited at θ = 45° showed remarkable magnetic anisotropies, which is further enhanced upon magnetic annealing. The [Co (1 nm)/Au (2 nm)] 20 45 multilayer showed a maximum MR of 2.1% at room temperature and H = 1 kOe. Moreover, for the same field H and current I, the transverse (H ⊥ I) MR is always larger than the longitudinal (H ∥ I) MR.