Abstract
The perpendicular anisotropy and thermal stability of CoFeB/Pt 5 multilayers are investigated with various CoFeB thicknesses (t CoFeB) and a fixed Pt thickness of 10.0 Å. Magnetic hysteresis loops exhibit a square shape for 2.2-4.0 t CoFeB and suggest that multilayers with appropriate CoFeB and Pt thicknesses display perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA). After post-deposition annealing at temperatures of T a 300°C, no obvious change occurs in the loop shape for t CoFeB 2.2 Å, while the perpendicular coercivity increases with increasing T a for the sample with t CoFeB 4.5 Å due to the enhanced (111) texture. At T a ∼ 300°C, the original square loops for both samples start to tilt, showing that the occurrence of the PMA degradation is independent of the CoFeB thickness. The XRD results indicate that the observed decay of the PMA in CoFeB/Pt multilayers upon postannealing is associated with the interdiffusion and alloying effects at the CoFeB/Pt interfaces.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Article number | 07C106 |
| Journal | Journal of Applied Physics |
| Volume | 111 |
| Issue number | 7 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Apr 1 2012 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 11074046, 51171047, and 61078030), and the National Basic Research Program of China (2009CB929201). B. Ma is thankful for support from the NSFC (Grant No. 51071046).