Thin nickel films with thicknesses ranging from 30 to 150 nm were deposited via radio frequency (rf) magnetron sputtering. The influence of argon pressure, film thickness, rf input power, and deposition rate on the magnetic, crystalline, and electrical properties of the films was evaluated. Depending on deposition conditions, film coercivity could be varied from 2 to 290 Oe while saturation magnetization could be varied from 280 to 500 emu/cm3. Higher argon pressures produced lower coercivity films. The films exhibited a dominant fcc(111) orientation. Lower argon pressures and higher rf input powers increased nickel grain sizes. Classical models based on domain wall energy considerations and film microstructure are used to intrepret the observed experimental results.
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FeCo films and their lamination with ultrathin NiFe layers down to 5 Å were deposited using dc magnetron sputtering techniques. Soft magnetic FeCo films were obtained at an optimal target power of 500 W and an optimal deposition pressure of 2 mTorr with high saturation flux density, B sat Ͼ 2.4 T, and low easy-axis coercivity, H ce ഛ 15 Oe, and hard-axis coercivity, H ch ഛ 3 Oe, at a film thickness of 2000 Å. While the magnetostriction remains at ϳ4 ϫ 10 −6 the stress was further optimized by applying substrate bias at a controlled level ഛ50 V without sacrificing film magnetic softness.
Single and multilayer [l 1 l]-textured films of Permalloy and Cu were grown by molecular-beam epitaxy (MBE) on ( 111) Si substrates. The magnetic properties of the films were measured by ferromagnetic resonance and M-H loop tracer. The microstructure was observed by transmission electron microscopy, reflection high-energy electron diffraction, and x-ray diffraction. Even the single-layer films had lower easy axis coercivity H,, ( ~0.6 Oe) and a lower in-plane anisotropy field (-1.1 Oe) than permalloy films of similar thickness ( ~80 nm) deposited by sputtering. In these single-layer films, the grain size and H,, both increased with improved pm-MBE cleaning of the Si substrate. The multilayers consisted of five identical thickness Permalloy layers separated by Cu interlayers. Multilayers with total magnetic thickness greater than 100 nm exhibited lower H,, than equivalent single-layer films. 4?rlw,, measured by a combination of ferromagnetic resonance and M-H loop tracer in very thin ( < 5 nm) permalloy layers was found to drop off relative to the bulk value of 9.5 kG, a value of 5.0 kG was measured for a multilayer with 1-nm-thick Permalloy layers. 5670
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