Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T10:08:13.940Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Structural Characterization of PLD-grown Nanometer Size Ferromagnetic NiFeMo Films

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 January 2011

Mitali Banerjee ,
Alak Kumar Majumdar ,
R J Choudhary ,
D M Phase ,
S Rai ,
Pragya Tiwari  and
G S Lodha
Mitali Banerjee
Affiliation:
mitali@bose.res.in, S N Bose National Centre for Basic Sciences, Materials Science, Kolkata, West Bengal, India
Alak Kumar Majumdar
Affiliation:
akm@bose.res.in, S N Bose National Centre for Basic Sciences, Materials Science, Kolkata, India
R J Choudhary
Affiliation:
ram@csr.ernet.in, UGC-DAE Consortium for Scientific Research, Thin Film Laboratory, Indore, Madhya Pradesh, India
D M Phase
Affiliation:
dmphase@csr.ernet.in, UGC-DAE Consortium for Scientific Research, Thin Film Laboratory, Indore, Madhya Pradesh, India
S Rai
Affiliation:
sanjayrai@rrcat.gov.in, Raja Ramanna Centre for Advanced Technology, X ray Division, Indore, Madhya Pradesh, India
Pragya Tiwari
Affiliation:
pragya@rrcat.gov.in, Raja Ramanna Centre for Advanced Technology, X ray Division, Indore, Madhya Pradesh, India
G S Lodha
Affiliation:
lodha@rrcat.gov.in, Raja Ramanna Centre for Advanced Technology, X ray Division, Indore, Madhya Pradesh, India
Get access

Abstract

Thin films of 3 different thicknesses each of Ni83.2Fe3.3Mo13.5 and Ni83.1Fe6.0Mo10.9alloys have been grown using Pulsed Laser Deposition (PLD) technique. Our motivation is to investigate the magnetic properties of a few nm thick Ni alloys with mostly Mo (4d element) addition since the corresponding soft ferromagnetic bulk alloys have shown very small coercivity of ˜ 0.1 Oe. Detailed structural characterization has been undertaken before probing the magnetic properties. Arc melted alloy buttons after homogenization are used directly as targets for the deposition. Films were deposited on single crystal Sapphire (0001) substrates using excimer laser. The structural characterization has been done by X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray reflectivity (XRR), Energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDS), and Atomic force microscopy (AFM). The X-ray diffraction pattern shows that the films are highly textured and grown along [111] direction of the alloys. They have high lattice strain which makes the films highly resistive and the resistance decreases with increasing thickness. The EDS measurements, using Scanning electron microscope (SEM), indicate that the compositions of the films are almost the same as those of the targets. Thickness, roughness, and density gradients are estimated using XRR measurements. The thinner films have higher roughness compared to the thicker ones for both the compositions. The films have density gradient across their thickness. The bottommost low density layer has high roughness which is supposed to be the result of initial non uniform coverage of the substrate. The density of the middle layer, having the lowest roughness, is approximately near the bulk value and it increases with increasing film thickness. The change in density is not due to the variation of composition; instead it is due to the variation of void densities in the layers. The topmost layer, having the lowest density and the highest roughness, is interpreted as a porous layer which is also evident from the AFM images.

Keywords

crystallinelaser ablationnanoscale
Type
Research Article
Information
MRS Online Proceedings Library (OPL) , Volume 1200: Symposium G – Magnetic Shape Memory Alloys , 2009 , 1200-G09-05
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Boothby, O. L. and Bozorth, R. M., J. Appl. Phys., 18, 173 (1947).Google Scholar
2 Cooper, E. I., Bonhôte, C., Heidmann, J., Hsu, Y., Kern, P., Lam, J. W., Ramasubramanian, M., Robertson, N., Romankiw, L. T., and Xu, H., IBM J. Res. Dev., 49, 103 (2005).Google Scholar
3 Taylor, W. P., Schneider, M., Baltes, H., and Allen, M. G., in Proceedings of Transducers '97, p. 1445 (1997).Google Scholar
4 Zhuang, Y., Vroubel, M., Rejaei, B., and Burghartz, J. N., Solid-State Electron., 51, 405 (2007).Google Scholar
5 Zhang, T., Zhang, P., Li, H. W., Wu, Y. H., and Liu, Y. S., Mater. Chem. Phys., 108, 325 (2008).Google Scholar
6 Rai, S., Tiwari, M. K., Lodha, G. S., Modi, M. H., Chattopadhyay, M. K., Majumdar, S., Gardelis, S., Viskadourakis, Z., Giapintzakis, J., Nandedkar, R. V., Roy, S. B., and Chaddah, P. Phys. Rev. B. 73, 035417 (2006).Google Scholar