Epitaxial tetragonal PtCo (001) thin films with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy

Annealing epitaxial multilayers of Pt and Co cause the formation of ordered PtCo tetragonal intermetallic compound with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy and a preferred c-axis orientation perpendicular to the film plane. Large magnetic anisotropy, magneto-optic Kerr rotations and magnetization are exhibited by these films, indicating that they can be used for magneto-optic and perpendicular recordings.