Thermal stability of L10-FePt nanodots patterned by self-assembled block copolymer lithography

Abstract

Arrays of 14 nm thick L1₀-FePt nanodots with diameter of 27 nm and center-to-center spacing of 39 nm were produced by block copolymer patterning of an FePt film and their magnetic reversal and thermal stability were characterized. A self-assembled polystyrene-b-polydimethylsiloxane diblock copolymer film was used as a lithographic mask and a pattern transfer process based on ion beam etching and rapid thermal annealing of the sputtered FePt film was developed. The dot arrays exhibited perpendicular magnetic anisotropy with K = 4.8 × 10⁷ erg cm^-3 and a saturation magnetization of 960 emu cm^-3. First order reversal curves indicate a softer magnetic component attributed to the ion-milled material at the edges of the dots. The switching volume and the thermal stability were obtained from relaxation measurements and DC demagnetization curves. Micromagnetic simulations reproduce the magnetic domain structure obtained for the continuous and patterned FePt thin film.