Characterization of Coupled Novel Magnetic Multilayers With Anomalous Hall Effect

We investigated the switching behavior of magnetic thin films with coupled in-plane and perpendicular anisotropy. The in-plane layer is made up of 20 A¿ of Co while the perpendicular layer consists of multiple Co/Pd bilayers. The coupling strength is moderated by a Cu intermediate layer. The method of Anomalous Hall effect was chosen because of its ability to distinguish the in-plane and normal-to-plane magnetizations in a single measurement. We discovered that without the Cu decoupling layer, the magnetization in the Co layer was induced to point out of the plane by the Co/Pd multilayer only to point back into the plane by an external in-plane field. As the coupling is reduced by increasing the Cu layer thickness, the magnetization in the Co layer behaves more independently with respect to the Co/Pd layer.