PREPARATION AND CHARACTERIZATION OF THIN Fe-BASEDMAGNETICALLOY FILMS

Abstract

The magnetic and the structural properties of the DC-sputtered Nd­ Fe-B films are studied in the present thesis in details. The effect of the film thickness, and different sputtering parameters namely the sputtering • temperature, vlotage, and pressure on the studied magnetic properties, e.g., the coercive force, saturation and remanent magnetization and the tacit parameters between both like the anisotropy field, anisotropy constant, and the maximum energy product was taken into consideration. Also the angular dependence of all these parameters at all sputtering conditions was studied. Furthermore, the deviation angles of the easy-axes out of the film plane of all the studied films could be deternind.

Special emphasis was given to the preparation conditions such as the surface roughness of films with sufficient magnetic performance is well below 100 nm, making these films suitable for rnicropatterning applications technology.

The XRD measurements suggested that, all the cold-sputtered films are amorphous, and all the hot-sputtered films are mainly crystalline characterized by the teragonal Nd2FevJ3 phase. Also, the amorphous films changed to the crystalline structure of the Nd2Fe1J3 phase after annealing at temperatures higher than 550°C for 3 hours.