Magnetic Studies of Vapor-Deposited Co/Si(100) and Co/Glass Thin Films

Magnetic force microscopy and alternating gradient field magnetometry techniques were used to investigate the static magnetic properties of vapor-deposited cobalt films with different thicknesses ranging from 50 to 195 nm. Brillouin light scattering (BLS) and ferromagnetic resonance (FMR) techniques were performed to study the dynamic properties of these films. Despite thicknesses well above the theoretical critical thickness that allows the presence of stripe domains, only the thicker films exhibit a magnetic stripe domain structure. The magnetocrystalline anisotropy factors, deduced and computed from BLS and FMR measurements, were found to decrease with thickness. Values of these computed effective anistotropy factors, of up to 7×10⁶ erg?cm^?3, have been found. All these results will be discussed and correlated.