Magnetic Properties of Hexagonally Ordered Arrays of Fe Antidots By Vacuum Thermal Evaporation on Nanoporous Alumina Templates

Highly ordered arrays of Fe antidot films were fabricated by thermal vapor deposition technique using nanoporous alumina templates. The film thickness varies from 20 up to 100 nm, and the antidots array has about 50 nm in diameter and 105 nm of periodic interspacing. Scanning electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy measurements confirmed that the Fe antidots film retains the well-ordered hexagonal structure of the nanoporous alumina template. Meanwhile, the micromagnetic structure was studied by magnetic force microscopy and SQUID measurements. A stripe magnetic domain pattern featuring a large out-of-plane magnetization component is found in the films. Noteworthily, the magnetic domains are not pinned by the nanopores but, on the contrary, several antidots are included in each magnetic domain. According to the magnetic measurements, the easy magnetization axis of the Fe antidot array remains in the film plane, while the hard one lies perpendicular to the plane, which can be explained on the basis of the different contributions of the nanoholes to the total magnetic anisotropy of the antidots film.