Evolution of Magnetic Properties with Structure and Morphology of Co/Alq₃ Bilayer: A Thickness Dependent Study

Organic spintronics (OS), which focuses on utilizing the spin degree of freedom in organic materials, has been a fascinating topic because of its technological aspects and future applications. In-plane uniaxial magnetic anisotropy (UMA) is becoming increasingly important in the rapidly developing field of OS. In this study, Cobalt (Co) films were deposited with varying thicknesses on the Tris (8-hydroxyquinolinato) aluminium (Alq₃) layer to investigate the evolution of magnetism and UMA. Magnetic measurements and simultaneous domain imaging have been done using the magneto-optic Kerr effect by varying the azimuthal angle between the easy axis of magnetization and the applied magnetic field. It was discovered that the bilayer exhibits a well-defined UMA in the film plane upon forming a continuous Co film with a thickness of around 10 nm. Structural and morphological properties of all the Co/Alq₃ bilayers were studied using grazing-incidence small-angle X-ray scattering and wide-angle X-ray scattering measurements at synchrotron radiation source, P03 beamline PETRA-III, Germany. The combined analysis revealed that in contrast to the inorganic magnetic polycrystalline thin films, where the UMA originates mainly due to the stress, the origin of UMA in Co/Alq₃ is attributed to the magnetocrystalline anisotropy caused by c-axis (Co (002)) preferential orientation. The surface free energy of Alq₃ is less than that of Co; therefore, the growth of Co starts with island formation, which coalescences with increasing thickness. The observed structure orientation may be attributed to minimizing the magnetoelastic energies due to coalescence known as the zipping effect. The absence of UMA in films with lower thickness film (~5 nm) is understood in terms of random short-range stress caused by isotropic pinning due to the diffused interface.