Texture formation and magnetic properties of RF sputtered CoCrTa/Cr longitudinal thin films

Author

Hsu, Yimin ; Sivert, John M. ; Judy, Jack H.

Author_Institution

Minnesota Univ., Minneapolis, MN, USA

Volume

26

Issue

5

fYear

1990

fDate

9/1/1990 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

1599

Lastpage

1601

Abstract

CoCrTa films of different thicknesses were RF-sputtered on 1000-Å-thick Cr underlayers. The in-plane coercivity has a maximum of 1670 Oe for 200-Å-thick CoCrTa films and then decreases to 740 Oe for 9000-Å-thick films. The in-plane squareness also decreases monotonically from 0.80 to 0.25 when the thickness of CoCrTa films increases from 100 Å to 9000 Å. By using transmission electron diffraction, it was found that CoCrTa films thinner than 400 Å have a distribution of c-axes lying mostly in the film plane or tilted by an angle of about 28° with respect to the film plane. 9000-Å-thick CoCrTa films are dominated by perpendicularly oriented c-axes. Crystallographic texture change during the growth process of CoCrTa films could be responsible for the observed thickness dependence of the in-plane coercivity and squareness. TEM (transmission electron microscope) micrographs of these films show no physical voids in the grain boundaries

Keywords

chromium; chromium alloys; cobalt alloys; coercive force; crystal orientation; electron diffraction examination of materials; grain boundaries; magnetic thin films; sputtered coatings; tantalum alloys; texture; transmission electron microscope examination of materials; CoCrTa-Cr; Cr underlayers; RF sputtered CoCrTa/Cr longitudinal thin films; TED; TEM; grain boundaries; in-plane coercivity; in-plane squareness; magnetic properties; micrographs; perpendicularly oriented c-axes; texture formation; thickness dependence; transmission electron diffraction; transmission electron microscope; Chromium; Cobalt alloys; Coercive force; Electrons; Magnetic films; Magnetic properties; Radio frequency; Sputtering; Substrates; X-ray diffraction;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Magnetics, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9464

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/20.104460

Filename

104460