American Institute of Physics, Applied Physics Letters, 18(107), p. 182408, 2015
DOI: 10.1063/1.4935104
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Thickness modulation at the edges of nanostructured magnetic thin films is shown to have important effects on their perpendicular magnetic anisotropy. Thin film wires with tapered edges were made from [Co/Pd]20 multilayers or L10-FePt films using liftoff with a double layer resist. The effect of edge taper on the reversal process was studied using magnetic force microscopy and micromagnetic modeling. In [Co/Pd]20 the anisotropy was lower in the tapered edge regions which switched at a lower reverse field compared to the center of the wire. The L10-FePt wires showed opposite behavior with the tapered regions exhibiting higher anisotropy. ; Comment: 15 pages, 6 figures