Perpendicular magnetic anisotropy and structural properties of NiCu/Cu multilayers

Perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA) was studied at low temperature (T=30 K) in dc-magnetron sputtered Ni60Cu40/Cu multilayers. PMA has been observed in many multilayer structures for ferromagnetic layer thicknesses less than a certain thickness t⊥. In general cases t⊥ is less than a few nanometers, making such structures unsuitable for low-cost fabrication techniques. Our results show a strong perpendicular easy direction of magnetization for NiCu layer thickness between 4.2 nm and 34 nm. The thickness t⊥ at which the multilayers change the preferential orientation from perpendicular to in-plane is estimated to be 55 nm. Structural studies show that the low magnetostatic energy density is likely to be the main reason for the large t⊥ value obtained in this system.