Reorientation of magnetic anisotropy in obliquely sputtered metallic thin films

Abstract

Reorientation in the magnetic anisotropy as a function of film thickness has been observed in Co-Ni and Co thin films, obliquely sputtered on a polyethylene terephthalate substrate at a large incidence angle ͑70°͒. This effect is a consequence of the low magnetocrystalline anisotropy of the films ͑fcc structure of Co͒ and changes in microstructure from nuclei to columns according to the thickness. The critical thickness for this transition was estimated to be 30 nm for Co-Ni.

Study of obliquely deposited thin cobalt films

“…Refs. [8,17,18,25]). In these papers the magnetic anisotropy of obliquely deposited films with different thickness was investigated using the torque measurements, hysteresis loops and transverse biased initial susceptibility (which provide information of the macroscopic character), but no magnetic domain studies were conducted.…”

“…Nevertheless, studies which report on correlation of the magnetic domain structure of these films with their morphological structure are in fact rare. Frankly speaking, we know only a few such studies [5][6][7][8][9][10]. Moreover, to our knowledge, observations of the morphological structure of obliquely deposited thin cobalt films have not yet been carried out simultaneously by TEM and AFM.…”

Influence of substrate topography on the growth and magnetic properties of obliquely deposited amorphous nanocolumns of Fe–Ni

“…To date, ferromagnetic nanocolumns have been grown by vapour phase co-deposition and oblique angle vapour deposition [25][26][27][28]. Fe-Ni-Co nanocolumns were grown by the self-organization of vapour phase co-deposited Fe-Ni-Co [26].…”

Investigation of the Morphological Structure of Thin Cobalt Films by AFM and TEM

“…This is in accordance with the results reported in Refs. [3][4][5], where well-defined columnar grain structures were observed for large deposition angles (larger than about 70…”

“…For the films 40 nm and 100 nm thick, we could detect no crystallographic texture by electron diffraction in the TEM. To obtain information on the crystallographic alignment of grains, measurements by X-ray diffraction (Θ − 2Θ spectra) [3] or by the X-ray Schulz method [2,6] are necessary.…”