Influence of controlled surface oxidation on the magnetic anisotropy of Co ultrathin films
- Physique de la Matière Condensée, Ecole Polytechnique, CNRS, 91128 Palaiseau (France)
- School of Chemical Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907 (United States)
We studied the influence of controlled surface-limited oxidation of electrodeposited epitaxial Co(0001)/Au(111) films on their magnetic anisotropy energy using real time in situ magneto optical Kerr effect and density functional theory (DFT) calculations. We investigated the Co first electrochemical oxidation step which we demonstrate to be completely reversible and determined the structure of this oxide layer. We show that the interface magnetic anisotropy of the Co film increases by 0.36 erg/cm{sup 2} upon Co surface oxidation. We performed DFT calculations to determine the different surface structures in a wide potential range as well as the charge transfer at the Co surface. Our results suggest that the magnetic anisotropy change is correlated with a positive charge increase of 0.54 e{sup −} for the Co surface atom upon oxidation.
- OSTI ID:
- 22398778
- Journal Information:
- Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 106, Issue 12; Other Information: (c) 2015 AIP Publishing LLC; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0003-6951
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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