Investigation of structural and magnetic properties of nanoscale Fe/Co bilayers

✍ Scribed by Ratnesh Gupta; Ashish Khandelwal; Raisa Ansari; Ajay Gupta; K.G.M. Nair

• Book ID: 104094537
• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2009
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 782 KB
• Volume: 203
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0257-8972
• DOI: 10.1016/j.surfcoat.2009.02.100

✦ Synopsis

To understand the effects of deposition order and ion implantation on magnetic films, we have prepared Fe/ Co and Co/Fe nanoscale bilayers by ion beam sputtering technique on Si(100) substrates. Implantation of 35 keV nitrogen ions in the presence of an in-plane magnetic field was done to modify the magnetic anisotropy at the nanoscale. The resulting microstructure and magnetic properties have been studied by X-ray diffraction and Magneto-Optical Kerr Effect. X-ray diffraction patterns of both the films give strong structural texture. The two films exhibit very different magnetic properties in terms of coercivity, anisotropy and domain structure. Two-fold uniaxial anisotropy has been observed in case of Sub./Co/Fe film while Sub./Fe/Co gives isotropic behaviour. Ion irradiation does not change the anisotropy in the film up to the ion fluence of 2 × 10 16 ions/cm 2 . Reduction in the coercivity up to 2 × 10 16 ions/cm 2 has been observed in Sub./Fe/Co bilayers.