Electrodeposition and characterization of Co/Cu multilayers

Abstract

Co/Cu multilayers having different bilayer number (total thickness) were electrodeposited on polycrystalline Cu substrates with a strong [100] texture from an electrolyte including Co and Cu ions under potentiostatic control. The structural data from X-ray diffraction (XRD) revealed that all films have face-centered cubic (fcc) structure, but their crystal textures change from [100] to [111] as the bilayer number increases. The magnetic analysis by vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM) showed that the magnetic moment per volume decreases as the bilayer number increases. Magnetoresistance (MR) measurements were made at room temperature in the magnetic fields of +/-12 kOe using the Van der Pauw (VDP) method with four probes. The samples with the bilayer number less than 111 exhibited giant magnetoresistance (GMR) with a negligible amount of anisotropic magnetoresistance (AMR), while the ones with the bilayer number larger than 111 have pure GMR effect.