MAGNETISM AND ITS DEPENDENCE ON ANNEALING TEMPERATURE FOR SPUTTERED CO CU MULTILAYER/

Magnetism and its dependence on annealing temperature for r.f. sputter ed Co/Cu multilayers have been investigated. It was found that the eas y magnetization axes of the films are parallel to the substrate and th e magnetic properties of both as-sputtered and annealed multilayers ar e isotropic in the film plane. The coercive field H-c is 4.8 kA/m and the ratio of remanence-to-saturation magnetization M-Gamma/M-s is abou t 0.73 for as-sputtered samples. Both H-c and M-Gamma/M-s increase wit h increasing annealing temperatures, especially when annealing tempera tures are higher than 400 degrees C. These experimental results can be interpreted using the ferromagnetic exchange coupling and the pinning theory of the coercivity.