Abstract
The as-deposited characteristics and the thermal stability at 300 °C of CoFe and Ru based ultrathin multilayers have been investigated and structural and magnetic characteristics have been correlated. These layer systems constitute the basis of the hard artificial antiferromagnetic subsystem used in current sensors. The coercive field of 2 nm CoFe (3.5 kA/m) is found to increase linearly by a factor of 13 upon increasing the Ru seed layer thickness from 5 to 40 nm. The weakening of the exchange coupling due to the sharpening of the crystallite boundaries is likely the origin. Magnetization-induced second-harmonic generation measurements show that the CoFe/Ru interface remains magnetically active after 36 h with a magnetic contrast of 0.17, indicating that no strong mixing at the interface is taking place. In accordance, the saturation field of the antiferromagnetic coupling in Ru5/CoFe2/Ru0.7/CoFe2/Ru (nm) does not change during 20 h of annealing. However, slowly a remanent magnetization develops which is thought to be due to the formation of ferromagnetic shortcuts through the crystallite boundaries of the coupler.
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