Publikationsrepositorium - Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf

Magnetic patterning by means of ion-implantation is an advanced technique to fabricate ferromagnetic micro-/nanostructures. In this case antiferromagnetically exchange coupled trilayers, consisting of two Co90Fe10 layers with a Ru interlayer, were used. The ion induced intermixing of the interlayer with its surrounding magnetic layers alters the coupling to a ferromagnetic one. Therefore Co ions with energies of 40-80 keV and a fluence of 5·1015 cm−2 were used. Hence, applying masks, ferromagnetically coupled micro-/nanometer sized elements (stripes, squares, circles etc.), embedded in a so-called artificial antiferromagnetic environment, have been fabricated. These structures were characterized by the use of Kerr-microscopy and MOKE-magnetometry to determine the mutual influence of the ferromagnetic elements with the antiferromagnetically coupled environment. Also their magnetic switching behavior was compared to etched single ferromagnetic structures. Domain pinning at the element boundaries was observed.