Paper TF+MI-ThA2
Perpendicular Magnetic Anisotropy in CoxPd100-x Alloys for Perpendicular Magnetic Tunnel Junctions and Bit Patterned Media

Thursday, November 2, 2017, 2:40 pm, Room 20

Materials with high Perpendicular Magnetic Anisotropy (PMA) have drawn intensive research interest in recent years. This is because they have applications in perpendicular magnetic tunnel junctions (p-MTJ) and perpendicular magnetic recording media. Often solutions to these problems require overly complicated multilayer structure or high temperature grown L1₀ alloy. We demonstrate a simple room temperature grown CoPd alloy that is characterized by Alternating Gradient Magnetometry (AGM), Energy-Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (EDS), and X-ray Diffraction (XRD). We have found that the PMA and coercivity is tunable based off thickness, composition, annealing, and seed layer. Current in-plane tunneling (CIPT) measurements were performed on the stack Si/ SiO₂ / MgO (13)/ CoxPd100-x (50) / Ta (0.3) / CoFeB (1) / MgO (1.6) / CoFeB (1) / Ta (5) / Ru (10), with the numbers in parenthesis being the layer thickness in nm. CIPT data shows the highest magnetoresistance measurements correlates with the samples with the highest PMA. The stack Si / SiO₂ / Ta (5) / Pd (5) / Co₂₅Pd₇₅ (20) / Ta (5), with the numbers in parenthesis being the layer thickness in nm, were patterned using block copolymer templating and show an increase in coercivity from 3.3 kOe to 3.6 kOe with a nanopillar diameter approaching 10 nm, indicating that it may be suitable for bit pattern media (BPM) development.