Crystallographic and magnetic properties of CoCrPt/Cr films produced by pulsed laser deposition

The crystallographic structure and magnetic properties of CoCrPt(30 nm)/Cr(50 nm) films fabricated by pulsed laser deposition have been studied at various substrate temperatures and ion bombardment energies. Cr(002) texture is developed at 350–500° C where increased coercivity is observed from the Co-alloy layers, while Cr(110) texture is formed at 300° C. The average grain size of the Cr layers gradually increases with substrate temperature from ~10 nm to ~20 nm, which is comparable to that of sputtered films. A Cr(002) X-ray peak is not observed from films grown at 400° C with Ar ion bombardment (> 50 eV). The coercivity and squareness of the magnetic hysteresis loops decrease as the beam energy increases, which may be attributed to the absence of Cr(002) texture.