Improvement of magneto-optical characteristics of TbFeCo/Al bilayered films at a short wavelength of 400 nm

Abstract

Bilayered films composed of amorphous TbFeCo alloy and Al layers were deposited successively on glass slide substrates without plasma exposure using the facing targets sputtering system. The specimen films with the magneto-optical (MO) layer thickness tMO of 14 nm have a Kerr rotation angle θK and figure of merit fM as large as about 0.36° and 0.25, respectively, at the wavelength λ as short as about 400 nm. These values of θK and fM are considerably larger than those of the bilayered films with larger tMO in the conventional MO media. Normally, the bilayered films with tMO above 50 nm have θK of about 0.25° and fM below 0.2 at λ of 400 nm.