Angular dependence of the in-plane magnetization of (100) Cu/Ni/Cu structures

(100) Cu/Ni/Cu sandwich structures have been deposited on (100) Si using the (100) Cu epitaxially grown as the seed layer. The in-plane epitaxial relation between the metal films and Si allows the study of angular dependence of the magnetization for the field parallel to the film plane. Keeping the Cu layers at 1000 Å each and varying the Ni layers between 50 and 1000 Å, the magnetization along the 110] edge is larger than that along the 100] one. This is observed for both structures with a Ni thickness of 1000 and 500 Å, respectively. For the thinner Ni layers, the angular dependence is interfered by the reversal in magnetic anisotropy reported earlier. For such structures, a squared hysteresis loop is observed for the field perpendicular to the film plane, whereas one with little loop is observed for the in-plane magnetization. The angular dependence observed for the 1000 and 500 Å Ni films is the same as that of single crystal Ni. The (100) Cu/Ni/Cu films thus grown can be used for other magnetic measurements in the exploration of two-dimensional magnetism with controlled orientations.