Perpendicular Anisotropy in Electrodeposited Nickel Films

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Abstract
The existence of a perpendicular anisotropy in electrodeposited nickel films, comparable in magnitude to that found in films evaporated in a nominal vacuum is reported. Measurements of the magnetization, stress, and anisotropy indicate that the perpendicular anisotropy constant K⊥ is a sum of two terms: a magneto-stress term which may be reduced in magnitude or even eliminated entirely by adding saccharin to the plating bath, and a term equal to the shape demagnetizing energy with magnetization M, roughly 90% that of bulk nickel. Since additional shape effects due to grain boundaries do not seem to be present, it is concluded that the lowering of the magnetization is due to randomly distributed defects. Ferromagnetic resonance measurements normal to the film plane give a perpendicular anisotropy field that is lower than the corresponding anisotropy field as measured by quasistatic methods. This discrepancy is attributed to the suppression of the uniform-precession spin mode for perpendicular polarization.