Publications Repository - Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf

The magnetic properties of ferromagnetic thin films fabricated on nanostructured templates is strongly affected by the surface morphology. Low energy ion irradiation of GaSb yields to a self organized hexagonal pattern that can serve as templates for subsequent deposition of magnetic films.
In this respect, curvature effects and influence of pattern symmetry result in a substantial modification of the magnetization reversal behavior of individual magnetic nanostructures and their assemblies.
Curvature-driven changes can be beneficial to reduce the switching field, which is advantageous for magnetic data storage applications, especially for the recording concept known as bit patterned media (BPM). In the BPM concept, an individual bit will be stored in a single magnetic nanostructure. Candidates for a recording layer are films with strong out-of-plane magnetic anisotropy (Ku) such as hard magnetic FePt alloys and [Co/Pd(Pt)]n multilayers.
Here, we aim at the fabrication of arrays of magnetic [Co/Pd]n multilayers on top of selfassembled nanocone templates created on GaSb(100) single crystal using a Ar+ ion erosion technique. By tailoring the irradiation conditions, the self-organized assemblies of nanocones were modified in size and periodicity. Due to the self-organization, large patterned areas can be fabricated which is challenging using e-beam lithography.
Macroscopic magnetic measurements performed using vector-VSM magnetometry (vVSM) indicate that all samples possess the magnetic easy axis perpendicular to the cone surface. The remanence as well as the coercivity decreases with increasing cone size, as the letter leads to a larger angular spread of easy axis following the morphology of the pattern. Additionally, MFM characterization shows that in the case of small cone structures the underlying cone pattern results in a pinning of magnetic domain walls on cone locations as there is a clear correlation between the morphology and positions of magnetic domain walls. For larger cone sizes, exchange decoupled magnetic caps are achieved with single domain areas confined to the cones apexes.