Characterization of Electrodeposited Cobalt/Copper (Co/Cu) Granular Multilayered Thin Films onto the Anodic Aluminum Oxide (AAO) Substrates

Herein, we report on the characterization of a series of cobalt/copper granular thin films alloys electrodeposited onto the previously pre-treated aluminum substrates, at different deposition time. And a systematic study of their structural and magneto-optical properties were investigated. The proper deposition potentials of Co, and Cu were obtained from the cyclic voltammetry method. It was observed that the easy axis direction of magnetization was parallel to the film plane for all films. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) results revealed that all films had a mixture of hexagonal close-packed (hcp) and face centered cubic (fcc) phases. The Scanning electron microscope images (SEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM) showed some parallelepiped and ellipsoid shaped rods with an averaged dimension about of 600 nm length, 600 nm width and 200 nm thickness for a sample electrodeposited at room temperature. These rods are irregularly arranged. Their irregular arrangement could explain the large d-spacing in the sample at this temperature. The magnetic analysis of the granular thin films alloys showed the saturation magnetization increased and the coercivity decreased as the deposition time increased. These results showed that the changes in magnetic and structural properties of granular cobalt/copper alloys deposits were substantially depending on the variation of deposition time. Therefore, the change of the deposition time was seen to control the properties of the alloys deposits and hence their properties could be modified for desired purpose.