Strong Perpendicular Magnetic Anisotropy in CoFeB/Pd Multilayers

The strong perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA), indicated by a large coercivity of 590 Oe, is obtained in CoFeB/Pd multilayers through a systematic study that involves using various substrates (Si, glass, sapphire, and MgO) and seed layers (Al and Ta) and also varying the thickness of the seed layer. The PMA is nearly independent of the substrate when Al is used as a seed layer, but the dependence increases significantly with increasing seed layer thickness. The behavior becomes rather complicated for the multilayers with a Ta seed layer, showing a large substrate dependence and a large seed layer thickness dependence. (C) 2010 The Japan Society of Applied Physics DOI: 10.1143/APEX.3.023001