Perpendicular Magnetic Anisotropy in CoSiB/Pd/CoSiB Trilayer Thin Films with Varying Pd-Layer Thicknesses

Abstract

We investigate the magnetic properties of CoSiB (15-angstrom-thickness)/Pd (Pd thickness= 8, 11, 14, 17, 20, 24, 27, 29 and 33 angstrom)/CoSiB (15-angstrom-thickness) trilayer thin films. The CoSiB-layer thickness was fixed to 15 angstrom, while the Pd-layer thickness was varied from 8-33 angstrom. In this paper, we present a new type of thin film containing amorphous Co75Si15B10 and Pd. We investigate the magnetic properties of a fabricated CoSiB/Pd/CoSiB trilayer thin film with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy, and determine the correlation between the magnetic properties and the nonmagnetic Pd-layer thickness. With increasing Pd-layer thickness, both the coercivity and the saturation magnetization decreased. Furthermore, the maximum values of the magnetic anisotropy were calculated as 0.3 x 10(6) erg/cc. In order to examine the difference between the in-plane magnetic anisotropy and perpendicular magnetic anisotropy, magnetic force microscopy images of the CoSiB (15-angstrom-thickness)/Pd (Pd thickness = 8 and 14 angstrom)/CoSiB (15-angstrom-thickness) trilayer thin films were obtained.