Anomalous Hall effect measurement of novel magnetic multilayers.

We have used the method of anomalous Hall effect (AHE) to characterize magnetic thin film structures consisting of both perpendicular (normal-to-plane) and longitudinal (in-plane) anisotropies. AHE enables the simultaneous extraction of the perpendicular and in-plane magnetizations. The method is used to obtain the hysteresis loops and study the switching behavior of [Co/Pd] multilayers coupled to different seed layers. Results show that Cu seed layer helps to reduce the switching field distribution (SFD) and increase the coercivity while Co underlayer with an in-plane anisotropy helps to reduce the coercivity and increase the SFD. Furthermore, the magnetization in the Co in-plane layer is found to be pointing out of plane possibly due to exchange coupling with the [Co/Pd] multilayers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]