Effects of swift heavy ion-irradiation on magnetic properties of Co-doped TiO2

Ferromagnetic Co-doped TiO2 thin films at room temperature have been synthesized by RF sputtering and ion-irradiated with 100 MeV Au ions. The surface roughness of the film increases with increasing Au-ion fluence. Kerr microscopy measurements at room temperature give isotropic hysteresis loop with negligible coercivity, which gets modified into in-plane uniaxial magnetic anisotropy after anion fluence of 5×1011 ions/cm2. Further ion-irradiation reduced the coercivity of the film. X-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD) measurements have been performed in total electron yield mode, to investigate the effects of ion-irradiation on magnetic properties of the Co-doped TiO2 thin films. From the XMCD analysis, we observed that the total magnetic moment of Co atoms in case of as-deposited film is 1.771±0.016μB. After the ion-irradiation it became 0.3818±0.014μB at room temperature.