Effects of perpendicular magnetic anisotropy on a large enhancement of elastic light scattering in ultrathin Co films

Abstract Effects of a perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA) on a large enhancement of elastic light scattering (ELS) in ultrathin Co films have been studied, where the ELS intensity shows a maximum at a critical field ( H crit ) between the in-plane and out-of-plane magnetization. We find that the maximum ELS intensity increases significantly with increasing Co thickness, where the strong PMA realizes H crit in such thicker Co films.