Tailoring Curie temperature and magnetic anisotropy in ultrathin Pt/Co/Pt films

The dependence of perpendicular magnetization and Curie temperature (Tc) of Pt/Co/Pt thin films on the thicknesses of Pt seed (Pts) and presence of Ta buffer layer has been investigated in this work. Pt and Co thicknesses were varied between 2 to 8 nm and 0.35 to 1.31 nm (across the spin reorientation transition thickness) respectively and the Tc was measured using SQUID magnetometer. We have observed a systematic dependence of Tc on the thickness of Pts. For 8nm thickness of Pts the Co layer of 0.35nm showed ferromagnetism with perpendicular anisotropy at room temperature. As the thickness of the Pts was decreased to 2nm, the Tc went down below 250K. XRD data indicated polycrystalline growth of Pts on SiO2. On the contrary Ta buffer layer promoted the growth of Pt(111). As a consequence Ta(5nm)/Pt(3nm)/Co(0.35nm)/Pt(2nm) had much higher Tc (above 300K) with perpendicular anisotropy when compared to the same stack without the Ta layer. Thus we could tune the ferromagnetic Tc and anisotropy by varying the Pts thickness and also by introducing Ta buffer layer. We attribute these observations to the micro-structural evolution of Pts layer which hosts the Co layer.