Magnetic imaging of ion-irradiation patterned Co/Pt multilayers using complementary electron and photon probes

The three-dimensional magnetic structure and reversal mechanism of patterned Co/Pt multilayers, were imaged using complementary Lorentz transmission electron microscopy (in-plane component) and magnetic transmission x-ray microscopy (perpendicular magnetization). The Co/Pt films with perpendicular anisotropy were patterned by ion irradiation through a stencil mask to produce in-plane magnetization in the irradiated regions. The boundaries of the patterns, defined by the transition from out-of-plane to in-plane magnetization, were found to be determined by the stencil mask. The nucleation fields were substantially reduced to 50 Oe for the in-plane regions and 1 kOe for the perpendicular regions, comparing to 4.5 kOe for the as-grown film. The perpendicular reversals were found to always originate at the pattern boundaries. © 2001 American Institute of Physics.