Ferromagnetic resonance study of Co/Pd/Co/Ni multilayers with perpendicular anisotropy irradiated with helium ions

Abstract

We present a ferromagnetic resonance (FMR) study of the effect of helium ion irradiation on the magnetic anisotropy, the linewidth and the Gilbert damping of a Co/Ni multilayer coupled to Co/Pd bilayers. The perpendicular magnetic anisotropy decreases linearly with He ion fluence, leading to a transition to in-plane magnetization at a critical fluence of 5×1014 ions/cm2. We find that the damping is nearly independent of fluence but the FMR linewidth at fixed frequency has a maximum near the critical fluence, indicating that the inhomogeneous broadening of the FMR line is a nonmonotonic function of the He ion fluence. Based on an analysis of the angular dependence of the FMR linewidth, the inhomogeneous broadening is associated with spatial variations in the magnitude of the perpendicular magnetic anisotropy. These results demonstrate that ion irradiation may be used to systematically modify the magnetic anisotropy and distribution of magnetic anisotropy parameters of Co/Pd/Co/Ni multilayers for applications and basic physics studies.

Document Details

Document Type
Pub Defense Publication
Publication Date
Feb 01, 2011
Source ID
10.1063/1.3544474

Entities

People

  • Andrew D. Kent
  • D. Ravelosona
  • E. E. Fullerton
  • I. Tudosa
  • J.-m. L. Beaujour

Organizations

  • Army Research Office
  • National Science Foundation
  • New York University
  • University of California

Tags

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Materials Science and Engineering.
  • Nuclear and Radiation Engineering.
  • Plasma Physics.