• Journal of the Korean Magnetics Society
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.119-124
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• 1992

We have investigated the effects of sputtering Ar gas pressure on magnetic and magneto-optical properties in compositionally modulated Co/Pd superlattice thin films. The samples were prepared by dc magnetron sputtering from 2-in.-diam Co and Pd targets by alternately exposing the substrates to targets. Sputtering Ar gas pressure was varied from 2 to 30 mTorr. All samples had same bilayer thicknesses composed of 2-$\AA$-thick Co and 9-$\AA$-thick Pd sublayers. It was observed that the colum-nar structure was more distinctively developed with increasing Ar gas pressure. We observed that the intrinsic uniaxial anisotropy energy, magnetization and polar Kerr rotation were decreased with increasing Ar gas pressures. Large coercivity and perfect squareness were attained by the deposition at the high Ar gas pressure. We believe that the results are mainly ascribed the variation of micro-structure with sputtering Ar gas pressure.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2011.02a
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• pp.444-444
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• 2011

Recently, patterned magnetic films and elements attract a wide interest due to their technological potentials in ultrahigh-density magnetic recording and spintronic devices. Among those patterned magnetic structures, magnetic anti-dot patterning induces a strong shape anisotropy in the film, which can control the magnetic properties such as coercivity, permeability, magnetization reversal process, and magneto-resistance. While majority of the previous works have been concentrated on anti-dot arrays with a single magnetic layer, there has been little work on multilayered anti-dot arrays. In this work, we report on study of the magnetic properties of bilayered anti-dot system consisting of upper perforated Co layer of 40 nm and lower continuous Ni layer of 5 nm thick, fabricated by photolithography and wet-etching processes. The magnetic hysteresis (M-H) loops were measured with a superconducting-quantum-interference-device (SQUID) magnetometer (Quantum Design: MPMS). For comparison, investigations on continuous Co thin film and single-layer Co anti-dot arrays were also performed. The magnetic-domain configuration has been measured by using a magnetic force microscope (PSIA: XE-100) equipped with magnetic tips (Nanosensors). An external electromagnet was employed while obtaining the MFM images. The MFM images revealed well-defined periodic domain networks which arise owing to the anisotropies such as magnetic uniaxial anisotropy, configurational anisotropy, etc. The inclusion of holes in a uniform magnetic film and the insertion of a uniform thin Ni layer, drastically affected the coercivity as compared with single Co anti-dot array, without severely affecting the saturation magnetization ($M_s$). The observed changes in the magnetic properties are closely related to the patterning that hinders the domain-wall motion as well as to the magneto-anisotropic bilayer structure.

• Journal of Magnetics
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.18-22
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• 2009

The shape anisotropy effect of a giant magnetoresistance-spin valves (GMR-SV) device with a glass/NiO/NiFe/CoFe/Cu/CoFe/NiFe layered structure for use in the detection of magnetic property of molecules within a cell was investigated. The patterned device was given uniaxial anisotropy during the sputtering deposition and vacuum post-annealing, which was performed at $200^{\circ}C$ under a 300 Oe magnetic field. The pattern size of the device, which was prepared through the photolithography process, was $2{\times}15\;{\mu}m^2$. The experimental results confirmed that the best design for a GMR-SV device to be used as a biosensor is to have both the axis sensing current and the easy axis of the pinned NiO/NiFe/CoFe triple layer oriented in the direction of the device's width, while the easy axis of the free CoFe/NiFe bilayer should be pointed along the long axis of the device.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2012.02a
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• pp.251-251
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• 2012

A lot of studies are undergoing on the magneto-optical (MO) properties of patterned magnetic systems for the reason that they have potential application to information technology such as ultrahigh-speed computing. Moreover, they can be considered as the future candidates for high-density MO storage devices. Not only the technical aspects, but there have been also tremendous interests in studying their properties related to the fundamental physics. The MO Kerr-rotation effects (both in reflected and the diffracted modes) and the magnetic force microscopy (MFM) are very useful techniques to investigate the micromagnetic properties of such periodic structures. Hence, in this study, we report on the MO properties of bilayered Cobalt (Co)/ nickel (Ni) micro-patterned anti-dot arrays. Such a ferromagnetic structure was made by sequentially depositing co (40 nm)/Ni (5 nm) bilayer on a Si substrate. The anti-dot patterning with hole diameter of $1{\mu}m$ was done only on the upper Co layer using photolithography technique, while the Ni underlayer was kept uniform. The longitudinal Kerr rotation (LKR) of the zeroth- and the first-order diffracted beams were measured at an incidence of $30^{\circ}$ by using a photoelastic modulator method. The external magnetic field was applied perpendicularly to the reflected and the diffracted beams using an electromagnet capable of a maximum field of ${\pm}5$ kOe. Significantly, it was observed that the LKR of the first-order diffracted beam is nearly 4 times larger than that of the zeroth-order beam. The simulated results for the hysteresis loops matched qualitatively well with the experimentally obtained ones. In conjunction with the LKR, we also investigated the magnetic-domain structure by using a MFM system, which were analyzed to elucidate the origin of the enhanced MO rotation.

• Journal of the Korean Magnetics Society
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.172-177
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• 2007

In order to detect of the magnetic property in the cell unit, we studied the GMR-SV (giant magnetoresistance-spin valves) biosensor, which was depended on the micro patterned features according to two easy directions of longitudinal and transversal axes. Here, the multi layer structure was glass/NiO/NiFe/CoFe/Cu/CoFe/NiFe. The uniaxial anisotropy direction was applied to the patterned biosensor during the deposition and vacuum post-annealing at $200^{\circ}C$ under the magnitude of 300 Oe, respectively. Considering the magnetic shape anisotropy effect, the size of micro patterned biosensor was a $2{\times}5{\mu}m^2$ after the photo lithography process. By our experimental results, we confirmed that the best condition of GMR-SV biosensor should be the same direction of the axis sensing current and the easy axis of pinned NiO/NiFe/CoFe triple layer oriented to the width direction of device, and the direction of the easy axis of free CoFe/NiFe bilayer was according to the longitudinal direction of device.

• Journal of the Korean Magnetics Society
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.122-125
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• 2013

Perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA) is the phenomenon of magnetic thin film which is preferentially magnetized in a direction perpendicular to the film's plane. Amorphous multilayer with PMA has been studied as the good candidate to realization of high density STT-MRAM (Spin Transfer Torque-Magnetic Random Access Memory). The current issue of high density STT-MRAM is a decrease in the switching current of the device and an application of amorphous materials which are most suitable devices. The amorphous ferromagnetic material has low saturated magnetization, low coercivity and high thermal stability. In this study, we presented amorphous ferromagnetic multilayer that consists of an amorphous alloy CoSiB and a nonmagnetic material Pd. We investigated the change of PMA of the $[CoSiB\;t_{CoSiB}/Pd\;1.3nm]_5$ multilayer ($t_{CoSiB}$ = 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, 0.5, 0.6 nm, and $t_{Pd}$ = 1.0, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 1.5, 1.6 nm) and $[CoSiB\;0.3nm/Pd\;1.3nm]_n$ multilayer (n = 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13). This multilayer is measured by VSM (Vibrating Sample Magnetometer) and analyzed magnetic properties like a coercivity ($H_c$) and a magnetization ($M_s$). The coercivity in the $[CoSiB\;t_{CoSiB}\;nm/Pd\;1.3nm]_5$ multi-layers increased with increasing $t_{CoSiB}$ to reach a maximum at $t_{CoSiB}$ = 0.3 nm and then decreased for $t_{CoSiB}$ > 0.3 nm. The lowest saturated magnetization of $0.26emu/cm^3$ was obtained in the $[CoSiB\;0.3nm/Pd\;1.3nm]_3$ multilayer whereas the highest coercivity of 0.26 kOe was obtained in the $[CoSiB\;0.3nm/Pd\;1.3nm]_5$ mutilayer. Additional Pd layers did not contribute to the perpendicular magnetic anisotropy. The single domain structure evolved in to a striped multi-domain structure as the bilayer repetition number n was increased above 7 after which (n > 7) the hysteresis loops had a bow-tie shapes.