Thermal stability of Co90Pt10 islands with relief-structured samples

Abstract Thermal stability of submicron scale Co 90 Pt 10 island has been investigated using relief-structured giant magnetoresistive samples. Elongated islands with the lateral dimension of 0.5 μm×2.0 μm and the thickness of 6 nm show nonlinear increase of the coercive field with decreasing temperature. The evaluated energy barrier becomes larger than 80 k B T for the thickness ranging from 6 to 18 nm.