Abstract
This paper reports the surface roughness effect on magnetic properties of Co thin films and the switching properties of the multilayer structures. Surface roughness is varied by using Ni80Fe20 thin film as an underlayer. The surface roughness of Ni80Fe20 thin films was controlled by applying different radio frequency (RF) biases to the substrate during the sputtering of Ni80Fe20 underlayer. Surface roughness effect on the magnetic properties of Co thin films and the switching properties of the multilayer structures were studied with Si/Ni80Fe20/Al/Co/Al and Si/Ni80Fe20/Al/Co/Al2O3/Ni80Fe20/Al multilayer films. Results indicate that the RF-substrate-bias-induced surface roughness has a great influence on the magnetic properties of Co films and the switching properties of the multilayer structures.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 339-344 |
Number of pages | 6 |
Journal | Journal of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials |
Volume | 247 |
Issue number | 3 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 2002 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:The authors would like to thank colleagues in DSI and ISML for discussions and help in the experiments. J.F. Hu was supported by an NUS postgraduate student scholarship.
Keywords
- Magnetic thin films
- Multilayers
- Substrate bias
- Surface roughness