Towards an understanding of microstructure of patterned FePt dots by magnetometry using pulse fields

FePt nanodot arrays are patterned and investigated by X-ray magnetic circular dichroism measurements and magneto-optic Kerr effect magnetometry combined with pulse magnetic fields. The experimental results on varied timescale of the applied field are analyzed by Sharrock's formula, showing the emergence of hard and soft magnetic FePt grains with distinct perpendicular anisotropy. While the hard grains in L1(0)-phase can construct the FePt dots with intrinsic perpendicular anisotropy fields around 90 kOe, the exchange coupling between the hard and soft grains in other dots degrades the dot perpendicular coercivity and widens the array switching field distribution, in both the 100 and 30 nm dot arrays. The dot size dependence of the proportion of the hard dot in the array demonstrates that the soft grains originate from the FePt grains of L1(0)-phase with large c-axis misaligning and of fcc phase inside the dots, and the ion etching effects are insignificant. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.