Evaporated CoPt alloy films with strong perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (abstract)

Abstract

Co/Pt multilayers with large Kerr rotations at short wavelengths and the magnetic and material properties desired for magneto-optical (MO) recording have been studied extensively as potential future MO materials. Very good recording performance has been demonstrated.1 However, the typical constituent layers in Co/Pt multilayers are very thin, 0.2–0.4 nm Co layers and about 1 nm/Pt layers. To manufacture Co/Pt multilayers consisting of 10–30 periods of such thin Co and Pt layers is certainly quite a challenge. One would prefer to deal with CoPt alloys if the alloys can be made to have large perpendicular magnetic anisotropy and coercivity. Previously no one was able to directly deposit CoPt alloy films with large perpendicular magnetic anisotropy and saturated remanence. Here we will demonstrate for the first time that CoPt alloy films with large perpendicular magnetic anisotropy and coercivity, and saturated remanence can be directly deposited by e-beam evaporation onto heated substrates, at 200 °C or above. Furthermore, we will demonstrate that the perpendicular magnetic anisotropy of CoPt alloy films can be dramatically enhanced by well (111)-textured Pt underlayers. The key to this success appears to be in controlling the crystallographic orientation of these alloy films such that the CoPt(111) lattice plane is parallel to the film surface. CoPt alloys with wide composition range, e.g., 25–57 at. % Co, have been obtained with saturated perpendicular magnetic remanence, indicating that the perpendicular magnetic anisotropy obtained in these alloy films is not related to the ordered tetragonal Co50Pt50 phase. Further work, however, is needed to clarify the anisotropy mechanism in these CoPt alloy films.