Magnetoelastically induced magnetic anisotropy transition in [CoO5nm/CoPt7nm]5 multilayer films

The magnetic anisotropy transition of [CoO5nm/CoPt7nm]5 multilayer film with respect to post-annealing has been studied systematically. It undergoes a smooth transition from longitudinal magnetic anisotropy (LMA) to perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA) upon annealing and returns backward to LMA at high temperature of 550 °C. The strongest PMA of [CoO5nm/CoPt7nm]5 is achieved after post-annealing at 300 °C and the tolerable post-annealing temperature with strong PMA is up to 400 °C, which indicates this multilayer film could be a potential candidate for the PMA application at middle-high-temperature-region between 300 °C and 400 °C. The mechanism responsible for the transition of magnetic anisotropy has been investigated by analyzing CoO/CoPt interface and CoPt layer internal stress. It is found the effective PMA energy is proportional to the in-plane tensile stress of CoPt layer but is inversely proportional to the roughness of CoO/CoPt interface. Finally, by means of low temperature experiment we demonstrate the magnetic anisotropy transition observed in [CoO5nm/CoPt7nm]5 multilayer film is mainly attributed to the change of CoPt layer in-plane tensile stress.