Magnetic properties dependence on the coupled effects of magnetic fields on the microstructure of as-deposited and post-annealed Co/Ni bilayer thin films

作者:Franczak Agnieszka; Levesque Alexandra*; Coisson Marco; Li Donggang; Barrera Gabriele; Celegato Federica; Wang Qiang; Tiberto Paola; Chopart Jean Paul
来源:Journal of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials, 2014, 372: 159-166.
DOI:10.1016/j.jmmm.2014.07.019

摘要

Magnetic films and multilayers are the focus of much attention motivated mainly by their wide range of applications, such as magnetic data storage devices and sensors. The magnetic multilayer structures are normally prepared through physical means of deposition, as molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) or sputtering. However, there are already examples of materials produced by electrochemical routes, which share with the other deposition techniques a high sensitivity of magnetic and transport properties of the samples on their crystallographic and chemical structure. In addition, electrochemical deposition allows growing structures with high aspect ratio, which are not possible to obtain by MBE deposition followed by lithographic processes. The present work investigates the bilayered nanocrystalline films produced through the temperature-elevated electrochemical deposition, and modified by annealing carried out also under an external magnetic held. The results indicate an increase of the coercive held of deposited Co/Ni bilayers, when the electrodeposition process was conducted under magnetic field of 1 T. The annealing processing caused further remarkable increase of the coercive field of as-prepared bilayers that has been preserved under magnetic annealing conditions. The magnetic properties are discussed in terms of samples microstructure. In as-prepared samples the in-plane magnetization was observed, while high temperature treatment, causing microstructural changes in the film, resulted also in appearance of a small component of magnetization oriented perpendicularly to the films%26apos; plane that could have been observed by MFM analysis. The induced perpendicular magnetization component in the post-annealed samples was a result of the magnetic field applied in the perpendicular direction to the samples%26apos; surface during annealing treatment.