Sputtering of cobalt film with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy on disorder-free graphene

Growth of thin cobalt film with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy has been investigated on pristine graphene for spin logic and memory applications. By reduction of the kinetic energy of the sputtered atoms using indirect sputtered deposition, deposition induced defects in the graphene layer have been controlled. Cobalt film on graphene with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy has been developed. Raman spectroscopy of the graphene surface shows very little disorder induced in the graphene by the sputtering process. In addition, upon increasing the cobalt film thickness, the disorder density increases on the graphene and saturates for thicknesses of Co layers above 1 nm. The AFM image indicates a surface roughness of about 0.86 nm. In addition, the deposited film forms a granular structure with a grain size of about 40 nm.