Magnetic properties of Co nanocolumns fabricated by oblique-angle deposition

The magnetic properties of columnar Co films on SiO2 substrates fabricated by oblique-angle incident thermal evaporation at room temperature were systematically examined by multiple techniques, including magnetic force microscopy (MFM), magneto-optical Kerr effect (MOKE), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Films with thickness ranging from 50 to 500 nm were deposited at the incident angles theta (with respect to substrate normal) from 0degrees to 85degrees. For films with thickness of similar to500 nm, the SEM shows the column tilt angle beta increases as the theta angle increases and beta<theta. The MFM images show that for 55 degrees<theta<75 degrees, stripe domains are formed and are nearly parallel to the direction of incident vapor beam. The hysteresis loops obtained from MOKE show that along the direction perpendicular to the incident vapor beam the coercivity H-c stays almost constant for all theta angles and the squareness decreases as the theta increases. This is in contrast to the increase of H-c and the increase of squareness in the direction parallel to the incident vapor beam for theta>60degrees . The result implies that for theta>60degrees, the axis parallel to the incident beam behaves more like the in-plane easy axis. These magnetic anisotropies are correlated to the angular-dependent columnar structure of Co films. (C) 2003 American Institute of Physics.