Nanopatterned CoPt alloys with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy

CoPt alloy films with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy were grown on SiO2 nanoparticle arrays with particle sizes as small as 10 nm. In order to induce perpendicular magnetic anisotropy in the CoPt film, a MgO seed layer was sputter deposited. Despite the fact that neighboring CoPt film caps are interconnected, individual caps appear as single domain and for most of them their magnetization orientation can be reversed individually. This behavior might be caused by domain wall nucleation and pinning preferentially at the rim of each cap. Thus, arrays of magnetic caps with defined pinning sites can be considered as a percolated perpendicular medium.