Room-temperature perpendicular magnetic anisotropy in Ni/Pd „111... multilayers

We report the experimental observation of room-temperature perpendicular magnetic anisotropy ~PMA! in Ni/Pd ~111! multilayer films having the thickness range of 5–11 Å Ni and 4–11 Å Pd sublayers, prepared by direct current magnetron sputtering on glass substrates at Ar sputtering pressure of 7 mTorr. Perpendicular magnetic anisotropy was found to be sensitively dependent on both Niand Pd-sublayer thicknesses, and a maximum anisotropy energy of 5.6310 erg/cm was obtained for the ~5 Å Ni/6 Å Pd!30 multilayer. The magnetoelastic anisotropy, quantitatively determined from in situ stress and ex situ magnetostriction coefficient measurements, was found to play an important role for the observed PMA in this system, together with the surface anisotropy. © 1999 American Institute of Physics. @S0003-6951~99!03946-7#