Thin films of SmCo5 with very high perpendicular magnetic anisotropy

Abstract

Thin films of SmCo5 with extraordinarily high perpendicular magnetic anisotropy were prepared by introducing a Cu∕Ti dual underlayer and controlling the substrate temperature during the sputter deposition. Under optimized conditions, the magnetic anisotropy constant reached 4.0×107erg∕cm3, and the coercivity and the remanence ratio in the direction perpendicular to the film surface were 12.0kOe and unity, respectively. The high perpendicular magnetic anisotropy is attributed to the high degree of preferred orientation of the c axis; the full width at half maximum in the rocking curve of SmCo5(002) reflection was 3.1°.

Magnetic properties and microstructure of SmCo5 thin film with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy

“…Moreover, in the 2y-y scan experiments of XRD for film A, no sharp reflection peak for SmCo 5 (00 l ) appeared. On the other hand, the reflection peaks for SmCo 5 (0 0 1) and (0 0 2) were clearly observed for film B, and the other peaks were not [15]. This is consistent with the result of in-plane XRD.…”

Effects of Nd substitution on magnetic and magneto-optical properties of TbCo/Cr films

“…However, the in-plane H c and S is only 0.3 kOe and 0.183 kOe, respectively. Both H c and S in the perpendicular direction are much greater than those in the film plane, indicating that perpendicular magnetic anisotropy is obtained [13] . Here perpendicular anisotropy field H k of the film can be estimated by extrapolating the in-plane hysteresis loop to the magnetization of the perpendicular loop [14] .…”

Magnetic Thin Films for Perpendicular Magnetic Recording Systems

“…However, an SmCo 5 thin film exhibiting distinct perpendicular magnetic anisotropy had not been prepared, although the film with in-plane anisotropy is relatively easy to prepare, for instance, by using a Cr underlayer [35][36][37][38][39]. Recently, we succeeded in developing sputter-deposited SmCo 5 thin films with very high perpendicular magnetic anisotropy [40][41][42][43][44][45]; it will be stated in detail in this section.…”