Synthesis, Structural, and Magnetic Properties of Fe100-xPdx Thin Films

Series of Fe100-xPdx thin films have been evaporated, using physical vapor deposition procedure under vacuum, onto monocrystalline Si (100). X-ray diffraction technique has been used to perform the structural properties of these thin films. The evaporated samples crystallized in the face-centered cubic structures. Energy dispersive analysis showed that the films are rich in Fe. The images issued from atomic force microscope present flat surfaces for most of the films. The magnetization curves carried out by means of vibrating sample magnetometer infer that the easy magnetization axis lies in the plane of the film with a total absence of in-plane anisotropy. Coercive field evolution has been found to be related to the evolutions of crystallite size as well as to rough mean square roughness of the films. All these results, and others, will be presented and discussed.