Magnetic properties of lithographically defined lateral Co/Ni80Fe20 wires

Abstract

A novel micro-fabrication technique has been used to create an array of lateral magnetic multilayers consisting of micron-sized sputtered Co and Ni80Fe20 wires. The structures were fabricated using conventional optical lithography and a combination of hard and soft lift-off methods. For the field applied parallel to the wires intrinsic easy axis, we observed two switching fields corresponding to the distinct coercive field of the Ni80Fe20 wires (Hc1) and Co wires (Hc2) constituting the lateral multilayer wire array. A state of anti-parallel relative alignment of magnetization was observed when the applied field is greater than the switching field of Ni80Fe20 wires but less than the switching field of Co wires. We found the region of anti-parallel alignment of magnetization between the Co and Ni80Fe20 wires to be very sensitive to the relative orientation of the applied magnetic field. © 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.