FeTaN thin films of 100nm with in-plane uniaxial anisotropy were fabricated by rf magnetron sputtering and patterned into strips with width varied from 30to500μm along both the easy and hard magnetization axes of the unpatterned films. The values of effective magnetic anisotropy of the patterned films increase as the strip widths decrease. The ferromagnetic resonance frequency showed a corresponding increment from 1.38to2.58GHz as the strip width varied. It indicates that this method is effective to tune the ferromagnetic resonance frequency of magnetic thin films. The resultant permeability spectra were understood according to the well-known Kittel formula where an averaged shape anisotropy arisen from the patterning was taken into account for the strips patterned along the easy axis. For the strips patterned along the hard axis, the increase in resonance frequency in narrower strips is attributed to the strengthened internal domain pinning effect predicted from the domain patterns numerically calculated.

A cool-down step deposition process (multistep deposition with cool-down interval) was used to grow nanocomposite FeAlO thin films of various thicknesses up to 440nm by magnetron sputtering at a substrate temperature of 15°C. The effect of the number of cool-down steps on the soft magnetic properties and high frequency characteristics of the nanocomposite FeAlO films were investigated. The deposition process was proved very effective in improving the soft magnetic properties and high frequency characteristics of the films. The eight-layered samples, fabricated by eight cool-down step deposition process, of thicknesses of 220 and 440nm had obvious in-plane uniaxial anisotropies while the single-layered films were nearly isotropic. The resulting real permeability value of the eight-layered films was larger than 300 for the 220nm film and between 200 and 300 for the 440nm film.