Coercivity mechanism and microstructure of Co/Pt multilayers

Despite of voluminous work on magnetic properties of Co/Pt multilayers, very little understanding has been achieved as to the coercivity mechanism in connection with the microstructure. This is a critical issue for optical storage applications, since the coercivity affects domain stability which in turn influences recording performance. (Co/Pt) multilayers were fabricated by sputtering in Ar pressure of 2 x 10 -2 Torr onto various substrate conditions (Fig. 1). Measurements of magnetic properties were carried out by VSM, AGFM and Torque magnetometer. Structural analysis was made by X-ray, XPS and high resolution electron microscopy.