Micromagnetism of Co/Cu multi-layered nanocylinders observed by electron holography
Résumé
The study of the new forms of magnetic states in magnetic cylinders has recently attracted much attention [1]. However, multi-layered structures in cylindrical geometry, which are basic blocks for spin torque nano-oscillators for example, have been poorly studied up to now. Among others, one of the main challenge for such studies is the experimental observation of magnetic configurations below 100 nm.
In this work, we used off-axis electron holography to observe the remnant magnetic states of Co/Cu multi-layered nano-cylinders with a spatial resolution down to 2 nm. Nanocylinders are grown by electrodeposition in commercial polycarbonate membranes. Their diameters range between 70 and 90 nm. In order to study the effect of the aspect ratio and dipolar coupling on the magnetic states, four series of samples with different nominal Co and Cu thicknesses have been realized, namely Co25 nm/Cu15 nm, Co25 nm/Cu45 nm , Co50 nm/Cu50 nm and Co100 nm/Cu100 nm. The magnetic configurations are recovered from direct qualitative and quantitative comparison between the experimental magnetic phase shift image obtained by holography and the one calculated from micromagnetic simulations (OOMMF). These ones are performed including the geometrical properties of each individual layers deduced from EFTEM experiments.
With our method, we have observed in the different wires either uniform magnetic states with antiparallel coupling or vortex states with different orientations of the core with respect to the wire axis [2,3]. In addition, different magnetic states can coexist within the same nanowire. Such a wide variety of magnetic configuration arises from the low values of the Co magnetic constants with respect to bulk, typical of electrodeposition process in single bath. To explain our results, we have calculated the phase diagram of the remnant states in a single disc for different orientations of the crystal anisotropy and saturation field. We show that the occurrence of each configuration depends on the aspect ratio of the layers, the direction of magneto crystalline anisotropy, and, in some cases, the interlayer dipolar coupling. In particular case, we will show that information on the preferential orientation of the crystalline anisotropy can be recovered from the statistics of occurrence of each magnetic configurations in the multilayer.
Finally, we discuss the interest of 3D holographic vector field electron tomography for nanomagnetism studies. Preliminary results performed on the Co25 nm/Cu15 nm cylinders demonstrates that it allows getting the exact shape of each layer and the 3D components of the magnetic induction in each layer. This avoids geometrical uncertainties in micromagnetic simulations and solves the problem of 2D projection in off-axis electron holography experiments, leading to a much better determination of the magnetic constant of the layers.
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