The magneto-optical properties of annealed Co96Pt4 nanowire arrays -: art. no. 104306

The magneto-optical (MO) properties of highly ordered arrays of electrodeposited Co96Pt4 alloy nanowires embedded in anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) membranes have been studied as a function of annealing temperature (T-A). The initial measurements yielded the four Stokes parameters from which the Faraday rotation angle (FRA) and ellipticity (tan chi) were extracted. The FRA was determined as 8.0 x 10(3) deg/cm for the as-deposited sample. After annealing at 300 degrees C the FRA attained a maximum of 1.1 x 10(4) deg/cm (an increase of 38%), but thereafter declined monotonically as T-A was increased to 650 degrees C. The ellipticity shows a similar behavior with T-A. However, the corresponding variation in saturation magnetization (M-s) with T-A does not match that of the magneto-optical constants, which suggests that factors other than M, also determine the values of FRA and tan X. The data obtained indicate that a suitable annealing regime is an effective method to optimize the MO properties of AAO-based magnetic nanowire arrays. (c) 2005 American Institute of Physics.