Abstract
Magnetization behavior of sputter-deposited Co/Pd multilayers were characterized, and it has been found that even when the multilayers are sputtered at low pressure (10 mTorr), the coercivity of the multilayers can be increased to large extent without noticeable change of saturation magnetization by increasing the deposition pressure of Pd underlayer. It turned out that the surface topology of Pd underlayer gets rough as deposition pressure increases, which consequently affects the magnetization reversal mode of Co/Pd multilayers from domain wall motion to magnetic spin rotation. The enhancement of coercivity is attributed to the domain wall pinning effect which is comected with the surface roughness of Pd underlayer on which Co/Pd multilayers grow.