Fabrication of L10-FePt thin films by rapid thermal annealing

The indirect rapid thermal annealing system with water cooling for the fabrication of L1₀-FePt thin films at low temperature was effectively developed. The FePt thin films were deposited on corning #7059 substrates by RF magnetron sputtering, and film composition was determined by energy disperse spectroscopy. The magnetic properties (measured by a vibrating sample magnetometer), crystalline structure (determined by X-ray diffraction) and film morphology and roughness (observed by an atomic force microscope) during the ordering process were consequently investigated. Results show that the FePt thin films changed to L1₀ ordered structure at lower glass substrate temperature by using indirect rapid thermal annealing system. Moreover, the grain diameter calculated by Scherrer´s equation from FePt(111) peaks was smaller than conventional thermal annealing.