Abstract
The elemental perpendicular magnetic anisotropy constants of both elements of a 20 nm bcc Co88Mn12 alloy film grown on MgO(001) and capped with Al, have been determined. By fitting a Stoner-Wohlfarth astroid model to the measured Co and Mn L3 XMCD peak intensities as a function of incidence photon angle with the magnetic field applied co-axially with the photon propagation direction, the elemental perpendicular anisotropy constants were found to be −6.46 x 105 J/m3 and −6.68 x 105 J/m3, respectively. The modeling of the Co and Mn data both result in nearly the same anisotropy constant as expected for a single alloy film.
Highlights
Quantifying the perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA) of magnetic films and structures has been important in perpendicular magnetic recording media for decades.[1,2] Recently, determining the PMA in thin films systems has gained importance with the discovery and development of magnetic vortex states,[3] magnetic skyrmion systems,[4,5,6] and in applications of more unique spintransport electronic structures.[7]
The elemental perpendicular magnetic anisotropy constants of both elements of a 20 nm bcc Co88Mn12 alloy film grown on MgO(001) and capped with Al, have been determined
By fitting a Stoner-Wohlfarth astroid model to the measured Co and Mn L3 X-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD) peak intensities as a function of incidence photon angle with the magnetic field applied co-axially with the photon propagation direction, the elemental perpendicular anisotropy constants were found to be Quantifying the perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA) of magnetic films and structures has been important in perpendicular magnetic recording media for decades.[1,2]
Summary
Quantifying the perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA) of magnetic films and structures has been important in perpendicular magnetic recording media for decades.[1,2] Recently, determining the PMA in thin films systems has gained importance with the discovery and development of magnetic vortex states,[3] magnetic skyrmion systems,[4,5,6] and in applications of more unique spintransport electronic structures.[7] For simple systems (magnetic films on non-magnetic substrates) it is straightforward to determine the PMA by a variety of techniques, using ferromagnetic resonance,[8] torque magnetometry,[9] or vector magnetometry.[10,11,12,13] This is useful for systems with either a positive (preferring perpendicular moment) or negative (preferring in-plane moment) perpendicular anisotropy constant These techniques only measure the total PMA and shed little light on understanding the tailoring of PMA in magnetic heterostructures where separating the contributions to the total PMA in magnetic multilayers or magnetically distinct phases in multicomponent systems is needed. We report the determination of elemental PMA constants for a bcc Co88Mn12 magnetic alloy film from the variation of the elemental XMCD signal with the applied magnetic field (both magnitude and direction out of the film plane) through a comparison to the Stoner–Wohlfarth astroid modeling of the magnetization.[16,17,18,19]
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