Magnetisation reversal mechanism in Co-Cr media for perpendicular magnetic recording

In this study Co---Cr thin films with perpendicular anisotropy are investigated. Three films with values for Hc of 11, 90 and 170 kA/m have been selected for this paper. Besides the coercivily several other parameters such as the Hc/Hk, Cr-segregation, domain structure, column sizes, etc. were studied by VSM, SEM, NMR, MFM, AFM and selective etching. The anomalous Hall effect (AHE) has been used to record the hysteresis curves of submicron Hall crosses. This very sensitive technique in combination with e-beam lithography and ion-beam etching resulted in the recording of AHE hysteresis loops with dimensions of the Hall crosses as small as 0.3 × 0.3 ¿m2. The AHE loops of three samples, with less than 60 columns, show different micromagnetic properties. Only the sample with Hc1 = 90 kA/m shows clear steps in the curves above the noise level. The largest steps correspond with the reversal of one column and the total number of steps was five times the number of columns for this sample. The different reversal mechanisms observed by the AHE are related to the differences in structure, coercivity and domain size

Comparison of recording properties of ME tape and thin MP tape with respect to overwrite behavior

Differences between the recording characteristics of thin MP and ME tape are studied. The effect of the thickness reduction of MP tape is also investigated. When thin MP tape (with thickness 140 nm) is compared with ME tape (with thickness 150 nm), we observe a better signal and overwrite response for the ME tape. Through simulations the influence of an easy axis out-of-plane and a different reversal mechanism in ME tape is related to overwrite behavio

Track edges in metal-evaporated tape and thin metal-particle tape

MFM images of tracks written in ME and MP tape have been obtained. The analysis of the images concentrated on the track edges. A track written with signals of 0.5 μm wavelength overwrites a part of a track written with a wavelength of 1 μm. The sharpness of the edges was derived from MFM results. It can be seen that the MP sample shows smaller changes in sharpness of the edge with an increasing write current than ME tape. In ME tape, the region between the λ=0.5 μm and the λ=1 μm parts of the track is much wider than the original λ=1 μm edge

Magnetic Force Microscopy Using Electron-Beam Fabricated Tips

We used a new concept of tip preparation for magnetic force microscopy (MFM) proposed recently based on coating electron beam deposited carbon needles with appropriate magnetic thin film materials. In combining the advantages of electron beam fabricated needles with those of already widely used thin film tips, high resolution MFM tips can be prepared routinely and reproducibly on all type of cantilevers. Due to the fabrication procedure, which is described in detail, the effective magnetic tip volume is formed by a homogeneous, magnetically isolated, high aspect ratio thin film element favoring a single domain tip behavior. To reinforce the inherent shape anisotropy an additional uniaxial anisotropy is induced along the tip axis by applying an external field during the deposition of the ferromagnetic alloy. Because of the parallel side walls and the rounded tip end, most of the stray field will emanate from the apex region, resulting in a high field density and only little influence on the magnetization within the sample of interest. By using a material with high saturation magnetization, the thickness of the magnetic layer can be drastically reduced, leading to an increased resolution. To demonstrate the potential of the new concept various MFM observations on different types of materials for magnetic storage technology have been performed without changing the presented basic preparation parameters

Domain wall theory and exchange stiffness in Co/Pd multilayers

The stripe model of domain structure in multilayers is studied by micromagnetic simulation. The results indicate a strong reduction of the effective domain wall energy (by dipolar effects). Domain width measurements on sputtered Co/Pd multilayers are compared with the theory. The estimated exchange stiffness is comparable with that of bulk Co. The effects of interface roughness and of interlayer exchange are discussed

About the screening of the charge of a proton migrating in a metal

The amount of screening of a proton in a metal, migrating under the influence of an applied electric field, is calculated using different theoretical formulations. First the lowest order screening expression derived by Sham (1975) is evaluated. In addition 'exact' expressions are evaluated which were derived according to different approaches. For a proton in a metal modeled as a jellium the screening appears to be 15 +/- 10 %, which is neither negligible not reconcilable with the controversial full-screening point of view of Bosvieux and Friedel (1962). In reconsidering the theory of electromigration, a new simplified linear-response expression for the driving force is shown to lead to essentially the same result as found by Sorbello (1985), who has used a rather complicated technique. The expressions allow for a reduction such that only the scattering phase shifts of the migrating impurity are required. Finally it is shown that the starting formula for the driving force of Bosvieux and Friedel leads exactly to the zero-temperature limit of well-established linear response descriptions, by which the sting of the controversy has been removed.Comment: 14 pages, 5 figure

The influence of the boundary resistivity on the proximity effect

We apply the theory of Takahashi and Tachiki in order to explain theoretically the dependence of the upper critical magnetic field of a S/N multilayer on the temperature. This problem has been already investigated in the literature, but with a use of an unphysical scaling parameter for the coherence length. We show explicitely that, in order to describe the data, such an unphysical parameter is unnecessary if one takes into account the boundary resisitivity of the S/N interface. We obtain a very good agreement with the experiments for the multilayer systems Nb/Cu and V/Ag, with various layer thicknesses.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figure

Spectral Features of the Proximity Effect

We calculate the local density of states (LDOS) of a superconductor-normal metal sandwich at arbitrary impurity concentration. The presence of the superconductor induces a gap in the normal metal spectrum that is proportional to the inverse of the elastic mean free path $l$ for rather clean systems. For a mean free path much shorter than the thickness of the normal metal, we find a gap size proportional to $l$ that approaches the behavior predicted by the Usadel equation (diffusive limit).Comment: LT22 proceeding