The influence of annealing on magnetic and magneto-optical properties of iron and nickel films

The results on the investigation of the magnetic and magneto-optical properties of the as-deposited and annealed at T 300, 400 and 500 degrees C Fe and Ni films of 50-200 nm thickness are presented. The measurements of hysteresis loops were carried out employing both VSM and magneto-optical method. Spectral dependencies of the transverse Kerr effect (TKE) were measured in the energy range of the incident light 1.4-4.5 eV. The strong changes of both volume and near-surface magnetic properties with increasing the annealing temperature were discovered. The observed variations of the magnetic properties as functions of the annealing temperature were explained by the microstructural changes of the annealed Fe and Ni films in comparison with the as-deposited ones. It was found that the shapes of TKE spectra for the as-deposited and annealed both Fe and Ni films are practically identical but the magnitudes of TKE decrease with increasing the annealing temperature. The decrease of TKE with increasing the annealing temperature was explained by the decrease of the saturation magnetization in the annealed films. (C) 2005 Elsevier B. V. All rights reserved.