Structural and spectroscopic magneto-optic studies of Pt–Ni multilayers

Abstract

Pt m – Ni n multilayers were grown by e-beam evaporation under ultrahigh vacuum; m and n will depict the number of atomic planes of the corresponding constituents in one modulation period and, in this work, they were varied between 1 and 14. X-ray diffraction and conventional electron microscopy experiments revealed a fcc polycrystalline structure with excellent modulation. Magneto-optic properties, studied at room temperature between 1.5 and 5.2 eV, were found to depend strongly on both m and n. Perpendicular anisotropy was exhibited for samples with thin Ni layers and, unexpectedly, for thicker Ni layers when Pt layers became considerably thin (m∼2). Comparison of the magneto-optic features of two similar samples grown on glass and polyimide revealed that the choice between glass and polyimide does not affect magneto-optic properties.