Magnetic anisotropy study of triangular-shaped Co nanostructures

Atomic force microscopy (AFM), X-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD), magnetic force microscopy (MFM) and vibrating sample magnetometry (VSM) have been used to measure the magnetic and geometrical characteristics of triangular-shaped Co structures of lateral size 730nm and thickness 32nm, prepared by nanosphere lithography (NSL). Evidence of in-plane six-fold magnetic anisotropy induced by the symmetry of the structure has been found. By means of XMCD measurements, performed at remanence after applying a pulsed field, a structure rotation angle-dependent oscillation of about 15% with a periodicity of 60° has been observed for both the orbital and spin moments. Furthermore, the system exhibits the angular hysteresis effect. The magnetic measurements performed by MFM show a reduction of the magnetic configurations to only two states, one quasi-single domain Y state and second, a combination of vortex and Y state.