Prepartion and properties of amorphous SmDyFeCo films

The amorphous SmDyFeCo films as a practical magneto-optical (MO) recording material were successfully prepared at the optimum condition. When moderate Sm is substituted for Dy, the compensation temperature Tcomp decreases, the Curie temperature Tc remains unchanged, the Kerr rotation angle θk increases, the saturation magnetization Ms at the room temperature increases and changes slowly with the temperature, and the coercivity Hc remains high in a wide range of the temperature. It is shown that the MO performance is obviously improved in a wide range of the temperature. On the contrary, substituting Sm for FeCo, The MO performance is not improved. Moreover, the effects of the argon pressure on the properties of the amorphous SmDyFeCo films were investigated. The reflectivity R decreases with increasing the Ar pressure, θk and the anisotropy constant Ku reach their maximum at a certain argon pressure, respectively. It is plausible that there is a physically significant correlation between θk and Ku.