Preparation and magnetic properties of Co-P thin films

Magnetic Co-P thin films were prepared by electroless deposition. The experiment results show that the film thickness has a significant influence on the coercivity. While the film thickness varied from 300 nm to 5 μm,the coercivity dropped sharply from 45.36 to 22.28 kA/m. As the film thickness increased further,the coercivity varied slowly. When the thickness of the film was 300 nm,the deposited film could realize the coercivity as high as 45.36 kA/m,and the remanent magnetization as high as 800 kA/m .The Co-P films were deposited on the surface of magnetic drums of encoders,whose diameter was 40 mm,and then 512 magnetic poles were recorded,meaning that the magnetizing pitch was 0.245 mm. The testing results indicate that the output signals are perfect,the output waveforms are steady and the pulses account is integral. Compared with the γ-Fe2O3 coating,the Co-P thin film is suitable to be the magnetic recording media for the high resolution magnetic rotary encoder.

Effect of hydrogen plasma implantation on the micro-structure and magnetic properties of hcp-Co_(80)^(57)Fe_(4)Ir_(16)thin films

We present detailed investigations of structural and static/dynamic magnetic properties of hydrogenated hcp-Co_(80)^(57)Fe_(4)Ir_(16) soft magnetic thin films.Two different kinds of defects,i.e.,destructive and non-destructive,were demonstrated by controlling the negative bias voltage of the hydrogenation process.Our results show that the structure and magnetic properties of our sample can be tuned by the density of the induced defects.These results provide better understanding of the hydrogenation effect and thus can be used in the future for materials processing to meet the requirements of different devices.

Left-handed materials in magnetized metallic magnetic thin films

The authors＇ theoretical investigation on the high-frequency response of magnetized metallic magnetic films showed that magnetic films may become left-handed materials （LHMs） near the ferromagnetic resonance frequency of incident waves with right-handed circular polarization （RCP） and linear polarization （LP）. The frequency range where LHM exists depends on the waves polarization, the magnetic damping coefficient, and the ferromagnetic characteristic frequency corn of the film. There also exists a critical damping coefficient ac, above which the left-handed properties disappear completely.

Evolution of Magnetic Domain Structure in a YIG Thin Film

The evolution of a magnetic domain structure induced by temperature and magnetic field is reported in silicon- doped yttrium iron garnet （YIG） films with perpendicular anisotropy. During a cooling-down procedure from 300K to 7K, a 20% change in the domain width is observed, with the long tails of the stripes being shortened and the twisting stripes being straightened. Under the influence of the stray field of a barium ferrite, the garnet presents an interesting domain structure, which shows an appearance of branching protrusions. The intrinsic mechanisms in these two processes are also discussed.

Influence of Nanocrystallization on Magnetic Properties of the Co-Based Alloys Thin Films

The rapid recurrent thermal annealing (RRTA) method has been used to amorphous Co-Nb-Zr soft magnetic thin films fabricated by DC sputtering. By using this method, in this paper, the crystalline grains with diameter of about 30~90 nm are formed and the partial nanocrystallization of the films is realized. As a result, the soft magnetic properties of the Co-based nanocrystalline thin films are improved greatly after RRTA: their resistivity is a quarter decreased; the average initial permeability is enhanced from 3 500 to over 5 000; the impedance is increased form 20 ~100 ?(at 1.4 GHz); the resonance peak is moved about 200 MHz down to low frequency. The evident improvement enables the Co-based nanocrystalline thin films to be used over a much wide frequency range of 1 KHz ~1.5 GHz.

Structural and Magnetic Properties of Co2MnSi Thin Film with a Low Damping Constant

Co2MnSi thin films are made by magnetron sputtering onto MgO （001） substrates. The crystalline quality is improved by increasing depositing temperature and/or annealing temperature. The sample deposited at 550℃ and subsequently annealed at 550℃ （sample I） exhibits a pseudo-epitaxial growth with partially ordered L21 phase. Sample I shows a four-fold magnetic anisotropy, in addition to a relatively weak uniaxial anisotropy. The Gilbert damping factor of sample I is smaller than 0.001, much smaller than reported ones. The possible reasons responsible for the small Gilbert damping factor are discussed, including weak spin-orbit coupling, small density of states at Fermi level, and so on.

Magnetization reversal process in Fe/Si(001) single-crystalline film investigated by planar Hall effect

A planar Hall effect（PHE） is introduced to investigate the magnetization reversal process in single-crystalline iron film grown on a Si（001） substrate.Owing to the domain structure of iron film and the characteristics of PHE,the magnetization switches sharply in an angular range of the external field for two steps of 90° domain wall displacement and one step of 180°domain wall displacement near the easy axis,respectively.However,the magnetization reversal process near the hard axis is completed by only one step of 90° domain wall displacement and then rotates coherently.The magnetization reversal process mechanism near the hard axis seems to be a combination of coherent rotation and domain wall displacement.Furthermore,the domain wall pinning energy and uniaxial magnetic anisotropy energy can also be derived from the PHE measurement.

SPIN-DEPENDENT TUNNELING MAGNETORESISTANCE IN Fe-O/AlO_x/Fe-O FILMS

Fe-O/AlO_x/Fe-O tunnel junctions were prepared by reactive magnetronsputtering under mixed working gas Ar+2 percent O_2. The insulating AlO_x layer of 1-2nm thicknesswas sputtered directly from A1_2O_3 target. Electrode layers were made of 80at. percent iron and20at. percent oxygen. Bottom Fe-O electrode deposited on glass substrate annealed at 473K at thepressure of 3 X 10^(-4) Pa for an hour shows disparate crystalline grain structure, lower electricalresistance and coercivity compared to the as-deposited top electrode. Only crystalline structrureof alpha-Fe is observed in both electrodes. Large tunnel magnetoresistance in large Fe-O/AlO_x/Fe-Ojunctions of 1cm^2 is observed at room temperature and the I-V characteristic curve of the junctionshows that the barrier of the junction is of high quality.

The 50 nm-thick yttrium iron garnet films with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy

Yttrium iron garnet(YIG) films possessing both perpendicular magnetic anisotropy(PMA) and low damping would serve as ideal candidates for high-speed energy-efficient spintronic and magnonic devices.However,it is still challenging to achieve PMA in YIG films thicker than 20 nm,which is a major bottleneck for their development.In this work,we demonstrate that this problem can be solved by using substrates with moderate lattice mismatch with YIG so as to suppress the excessive strain-induced stress release as increasing the YIG thickness.After carefully optimizing the growth and annealing conditions,we have achieved out-of-plane spontaneous magnetization in YIG films grown on sGGG substrates,even when they are as thick as 50 nm.Furthermore,ferromagnetic resonance and spin pumping induced inverse spin Hall effect measurements further verify the good spin transparency at the surface of our YIG films.

Magnetic Properties and Coercivity of MnGa Films Deposited on Different Substrates

MnGa films were grown by magnetron sputtering on thermally oxidized Si（Si/SiO2） and glass substrates. Films grown on single-crystal Si（100） substrate with different underlayers were prepared for comparison. It is found that the Si/SiO2 substrate is more suitable for growing high-coercivity MnGa films than the glass substrate, which is the result of the isolated-island-like growth. A coercivity of 9.7 kOe can be achieved for the 10 nm MnGa films grown on Si/SiO2 substrate at substrate temperature TS of 450 °C.Optimized experimental conditions are specified by changing the thickness of the MnGa films and the temperature of the substrates.