Magnetic property and microstructure of SmCo magnetic recording films

Cr/SmCo/Cr thin films with Sm concentration of 37.7 at.% were deposited on glass substrates by magnetron sputtering. Measurement of magnetic properties showed that the SmCo film possessed good magnetic anisotropy, a high coercivity of 3019 kA/m and low magnetic exchange coupling. Microstructure analysis showed that crystallized SmCo5 magnetic phase, non-magnetic SmCo2 phase and Sm2Co7 phase co-existed in the film. The non-magnetic SmCo2 phase might function as isolator of SmCo grains, leading to a decrease of magnetic exchange coupling. Moreover, a Cr2O3 oxide layer which could protect the SmCo layer from oxidation formed at the surface of the Cr cap layer.

Temperature Dependence of Magnetic Properties of SmCo/FeCo Multilayer Films

Sm22Co78/Fe65Co35/Sm22Co78/Fe65Co35 multilayer films were prepared by magnetron sputtering. The temperature dependence of coercivity (Hc), remanence (Mr) and reduced remanence (Mr/Ms) has been measured. The coercivity decreases with increasing of temperature. The remanence decreases with increasing the temperature from 26 to 100℃, and then increases with continuously increasing the temperature from 100 to 150℃. The reduced remanence increases with increasing the temperature.

Scaling Behavior and Magnetic Properties for Sm_x Co_5 Films

SmxCo5(x = 1.3, 0.7, 0.4) thin films were prepared by magnetron co-sputtering technique. The samples were annealed at 723 K under Ar atmosphere. The annealed time was chosen as 30 min. The hysteresis loops of the samples were measured under the ac applied magnetic field with the period Tp(2πω) , H(t) = H0sin(ωt), by vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM). The experimental results indicate that, (1) the average hysteresis loop areas as functions of the values of H0 andωdisplay a power scaling law with the exponents, A = A0 + H0αωβ; (2) the x composition of SmxCo5 film has evident effect on the scaling behavior and magnetic properties; (3) the anisotropy scaling exponents exist clearly in the anisotropy SmxCo5 thin films. Moreover, the scaling behavior of the anisotropy magnetic film was also simulated with Monte Carlo method. The simulated results are consistent with the experimental fact.

Strategy of preparing SmCo based films with high coercivity and remanence ratio achieved by temperature and chemical optimization

SmCo based films with excellent intrinsic magnetic properties have promising applications in micro-electro-mechanical system(MEMS).However,due to the complexity of phase composition and uncontrollable crystallization degree of SmCo hard magnetic phase in the film,both the coercivity(Hc)and remanence(Mr)of films are difficult to enhance simultaneously.In this paper,SmCo based films were deposited with a Cr underlayer and capping layer on single crystal Si substrates via magnetron sputtering process.The effects of annealing parameters and Sm/Co atomic ratio on the phase structure and coercivity of films are discussed.By adjusting the Sm/Co atomic ratio from 1:5 to 1:4,Co soft magnetic phase disappears and the single phase SmCo5 is obtained,leading to the increase of coercivity of the films from 30 to 34 kOe.The influence of deposition temperature and Cu doping on magnetic properties of SmCo based films was investigated.When the deposition temperature increases from room temperature to 250℃,the coercivity will further increase from 34 to 51 kOe.However,a severe kink is observed in the demagnetization curves due to the poor exchanged coupling.An analysis of transmission electron microscopy(TEM)confirms that the average size of non-hard magnetic amorphous phase exceeds the effective exchanged coupling length of SmCo5,which contributes to the decoupling and low remanence ratio.Therefore,doping Cu and applying a post-annealing process can significantly improve the crystallization degree of the films.Both the coercivity and the remanence ratio of the demagnetization curves are greatly enhanced.We propose a plausible strategy to prepare the SmCo based films with high coercivity and remanence ratio by temperature and chemical optimization,which can be utilized in high performed MEMS devices.

Crystal structure,microstructure and magnetic properties of SmCo-based films treated by different annealing methods

Effect of conventional thermal annealing（CTA） and rapid recurrent thermal annealing（RRTA） processes on crystal structure,mi-crostructure,and magnetic properties of the SmCo-based films were investigated.The results indicated that the CTA-treated films exhibited poor permanent magnetic properties,and a low intrinsic coercivity of 72.8 kA/m was observed.Wide hysteresis loop was obtained for the RRTA-treated films,providing better permanent magnetic properties.The intrinsic coercivity reached 312.0 kA/m.According to the X-ray diffraction（XRD） and atomic force microscopy（AFM） results,the magnetic properties of the CTA-treated films and RRTA-treated films were found to be correlated with the crystal structure and microstructure,which were strongly determined by the annealing treatment.CTA treatment led to poor crystallization effects for the films,and a rough surface（RMS=3.47 nm and P-V=35.42 nm） and large grain size of 92.7 nm were observed correspondingly.However,the RRTA treatment exhibited great contributions on the crystallization of the films,which is accountable for the smooth surface（RMS=2.047 nm and P-V=16.43 nm） and fine grain size of 60.8 nm.

Magnetic properties of SmCo-based permanent magnetic films during 25 to 300 ℃

Magnetic properties of the SmCo-based permanent magnetic films prepared on hot substrate with Mo and Cr underlayer without subsequent annealing process were investigated by vibrating sample magnetometer （VSM）, X-ray diffraction （XRD）, and en- ergy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy （EDS）. The results showed that the film thickness of the SmCo-based films presented complex effect on the intrinsic coercivity Hci. Optimal Hc~ for the films with Mo underlayer, Cr underlayer, and without underlayer was ob- served with different film thicknesses. Furthermore, the monotonous temperature dependence of Hci was found to be strongly corre- lated with the magnetic parameters for the 3.0 μm thick SmCo7 films with Mo underlayer. From 25 to 300 ℃, the Hci decreased from 281.6 to 211.2 kA/m with a temperature coefficient of-0.091%/℃, exhibiting good temperature stability.

Effect of film thickness on magnetic properties of Cr/SmCo/Cr films

Cr/SmCo/Cr films with different SmCo thickness were deposited on glass substrates by magnetron sputtering,followed by an annealing process at 550 °C for 20 min.Experimental results showed that the SmCo film of 30 nm exhibited two-phase behavior in the demagnetization process,the obvious kink was observed near zero.For the SmCo film of 50 nm,the kink was invisible,and a single phase like behavior was obtained in the demagnetization process.The reversal behavior became consistent in the thicker films.Moreover,the coercivity reduced and the saturated magnetization increased obviously with the increasing thickness.X-ray diffraction results indicated that the average grain size of SmCo 5 in the thicker films were almost 30 nm,but the quantity of SmCo 5 grains increased with the increasing thickness,which enhanced the intergrain exchange coupling（IEC） of the SmCo 5 hard phases.The increase of IEC improved the magnetic properties of SmCo films with increasing thickness.