Strong perpendicular magnetic anisotropy and interlayer coupling in CoRh/Rh/Fe multilayers tailored by Rh spacer layer thickness

Abstract

Magnetic interlayer coupling is a critical study topic for spintronic device technology because it is an essential component in designing magnetic multilayers with functionality that can be expanded into application areas. Particularly, the interlayer coupling between two ferromagnetic (FM) layers with different magnetic properties in the magnetic field is the specific situation to develop spintronic applications, such as increasing the sensitivity of magnetic field sensors. Therefore, the film structure was chosen as two layers in this study; the first ferromagnetic layer (FM1-CoRh) has a perpendicular and the second ferromagnetic layer (FM2-Fe) has an in-plane (IP) magnetic easy axis in the presence of a magnetic field. Here, a non-magnetic (NM) Rh spacer layer separated the two FM layers. The magnetic properties dependent on spacer layer thickness (t) in CoRh/Rh/Fe multilayers were investigated in detail. It is found that the strength of interlayer coupling alters depending on the t.