With the continuous shrinkage of the footprint of inductors and transformers in modern power supplies, higher flux, while still low-loss metallic replacements of traditional ferrite materials are becoming an intriguing alternative. One candidate replacement strategy is based on amorphous CoFeBSi soft-magnetic alloys, in their metallic glass form. Here the structural and magnetic properties of two different families of CoFeBSi-based soft magnetic alloys, prepared by arc-melting and subsequent melt spinning (rapid quenching) are presented, targeting potential applications at effective frequencies of 100 kHz and beyond. The nominal alloy compositions are Co67Fe4B11Si16Mo2 representing commercial Vitrovac and Co72-xFexB28-y (where B includes non-magnetic elements such as Boron, Silicon etc. x varies between 4 and 5 % and y is varied from 0 to 2 %) denoted Alloy #1 and prepared as a possible higher performance alternative, i.e. lower power loss and lower coercivity, to commercial Vitrovac. Room temperature magnetization measurements of the arc-melted alloys reveal that compared to Vitrovac, Alloy #1 already presents a ten-fold decrease in coercivity, with Hc ∼ 1.4 Am-1 and highest figure of merit of (Ms/Hc > 96). Upon melt-spinning the alloys into thin (< 30 μm) ribbons, the alloys are essentially amorphous when analyzed by XRD. Magnetization measurements of the melt-spun ribbons demonstrate that Alloy #1 possesses a coercivity of just 2 Am-1, which represents a significant improvement compared to melt-spun ribbons of Vitrovac (17 Am-1). A set of prototype transformers of approximately 10 turns of Alloy #1 ribbon exhibits systematically Hc < 10 Am-1 at 100 kHz, without a noticeable decrease in coupled flux and saturation.

We present a method to identify bulk glass forming ability by partial substitution of Fe by Ni in FeBNbY based amorphous alloy ribbons and as a consequence obtain enhanced mechanical and soft magnetic properties of bulk glassy rods of diameter as large as 4.5 mm. A detailed investigation of thermal, mechanical, and magnetic properties of (Fe0.72−x NixB0.24Nb0.04)95.5Y4.5 alloys (with x ∼ 0.02, 0.04, 0.06, 0.08, 0.1) was carried out. The supercooled regime (ΔTx) and other glass forming parameters, e.g., reduced glass transition temperature (Trg), the gamma (γ) parameter, etc., were found to be enhanced due to the Ni substitution resulting in improvement of glass forming ability (GFA). The maximum values of such parameters (ΔTx ∼ 94 K, Trg ∼ 0.644, and γ ∼ 0.435) were obtained for the alloy with x ∼ 0.06, making it possible to cast cylindrical rods with 4.5 mm diameter for this composition. Nanoindentation studies on glassy rods also point out that (Fe0.66Ni0.06B0.24Nb0.04)95.5Y4.5 alloy exhibit the maximum value of hardness (H ∼ 12 GPa) as well as elastic modulus (E ∼ 193 GPa) among all of these samples. In addition to these, that particular sample shows the lowest room temperature coercivity (Hc ∼ 210 mOe). By annealing at 823 K, Hc can be further reduced to 60 mOe due to its structural relaxation. We attribute the improved soft magnetic and mechanical properties of as-quenched (Fe0.66Ni0.06B0.24Nb0.04)95.5Y4.5 alloy to higher packing density attained due to its large glass forming ability.

We have successfully synthesized Fe-doped ZnO nanorods by a new and simple method in which the adopted approach is by using ammonia as a continuous source ofOH-for hydrolysis instead of hexamethylenetetramine (HMT). The energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) spectra revealed that the Fe peaks were presented in the grown Fe-doped ZnO nanorods samples and the X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) results suggested that Fe3+is incorporated into the ZnO lattice. Structural characterization indicated that the Fe-doped ZnO nanorods grow along thec-axis with a hexagonal wurtzite structure and have single crystalline nature without any secondary phases or clusters of FeO or Fe3O4observed in the samples. The Fe-doped ZnO nanorods showed room temperature (300 K) ferromagnetic magnetization versus field (M-H) hysteresis and the magnetization increases from 2.5 μemu to 9.1 μemu for Zn0.99Fe0.01O and Zn0.95Fe0.05O, respectively. Moreover, the fabricated Au/Fe-doped ZnO Schottky diode based UV photodetector achieved 2.33 A/W of responsivity and 5 s of time response. Compared to other Au/ZnO nanorods Schottky devices, the presented responsivity is an improvement by a factor of 3.9.

The emergence of perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA) in amorphous thin films, which eventually transforms the magnetic spins form an in-plane to the out-of-plane configuration, also known as a spin-reorientation transition (SRT), is a fundamental roadblock to attain the high flux concentration advantage of these functional materials for broadband applications. The present work is focused on unfolding the origin of PMA in amorphous thin films deposited by magnetron sputtering. The amorphous films were deposited under a broad range of sputtering pressure (1.6–6.2 mTorr), and its effect on the thin film growth mechanisms was correlated to the static global magnetic behaviours, magnetic domain structure, and dynamic magnetic performance. The films deposited under low-pressure revealed a dominant in-plane uniaxial anisotropy along with an emerging, however feeble, perpendicular component, which eventually evolved as a dominant PMA when deposited under high-pressure sputtering. This change in the nature of anisotropy redefined the orientation of spins from in-plane to out-of-plane. The SRT in amorphous films was attributed to the dramatic change in the growth mechanism of disorder atomic structure from a homogeneously dispersed to a porous columnar microstructure. We suggest the origin of PMA is associated with the columnar growth of the amorphous films, which can be eluded by a careful selection of a deposition pressure regime to avoid its detrimental effect on the soft magnetic performance. To the author’s best knowledge, no such report links the sputtering pressure as a governing mechanism of perpendicular magnetisation in technologically important amorphous thin films.

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