Structural and Magnetic Studies of CoCr Thin Films Prepared by Physical Vapor Deposition

We use physical vapor deposition (PVD) to produce, under vacuum, CoCr thin films onto Si (100) and glass substrates. The thicknesses of the samples were measured with a DEKTAK 150 profilometer and the micro structural properties were studied using a Siemens D500 X-ray diffractometer. The static magnetic characterization was done by means of an Alternating Gradient Field Magnetometer (A.G.F.M.) 2900 MicroMag. The films deposited on Corning glass are amorphous. Among all the samples deposited on Si(100) with thickness ranging from 100 nm to 340 nm, only those with thickness 163 nm, 178 nm and 340 nm are polycrystalline and present a hexagonal close-packed (h.c.p.) structure with aOE (c) 0001 > texture. The magnetization curve study infers that all the samples present a planar ferromagnetic anisotropy. The maximum saturation magnetization M (s) value being 400 emu/cm(3), the coercive field decreases vs. thickness beyond a maximum value (178 nm). All these results will be presented and discussed.