Angle-dependent X-ray magnetic circular dichroism study of enhanced perpendicular magnetic anisotropy in hybrid [CoO/Pd]2[Co/Pd]7 multilayers

Abstract We have investigated the angle-dependent orbital and spin magnetic moments of the [Co/Pd] multilayer (ML) films with intervening CoO layers under annealing by employing angle-dependent soft X-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD). After annealing, the orbital magnetic moments of Co ions are found to be enhanced, with the maximum values along the perpendicular direction of [Co/Pd] ML, providing evidence for the origin of the improved perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA) being the interface spin–orbit coupling. The induced Pd polarization was observed after annealing, demonstrating the strong Co-Pd hybridization arising from the Co-Pd alloy formation near the interface. The angle-dependent coercivity follows the 1 / cos θ behavior, suggesting that the magnetization reversal in the hysteresis curve in [Co/Pd] ML occurs mainly through the pinning mechanism.