Abstract
ABSTRACT Sputtering and electrodeposition are among the most widespread techniques for metallic thin film deposition. Since these techniques operate under different principles, the resulting films typically show different microstructures even when the chemical composition is kept fixed. In this work, films of Fe70Pd30 were produced in a thickness range between 30 and 600 nm, using both electrodeposition and sputtering. The electrodeposited films were deposited under potentiostatic regime from an ammonia sulfosalicylic acid-based aqueous solution. Meanwhile, the sputtered films were deposited from a composite target in radio frequency regime. Both approaches were proven to yield high quality and homogenous films. However, their crystallographic structure was different. Although all films were polycrystalline and Fe and Pd formed a solid solution with a body-centered cubic structure, a palladium hydride phase was additionally detected in the electrodeposited films. The occurrence of this phase induced internal stress in the films, thereby influencing their magnetic properties. In particular, the thickest electrodeposited Fe70Pd30 films showed out-of-plane magnetic anisotropy, whereas the magnetization easy axis lied in the film plane for all the sputtered films. The domain pattern of the electrodeposited films was investigated by magnetic force microscopy. Finally, nanoindentation studies highlighted the high quality of both the sputtered and electrodeposited films, the former exhibiting higher reduced Young’s modulus and Berkovich hardness values.
Highlights
Iron-palladium alloys arise great attention from the technological viewpoint as they show a unique and very interesting combination of mechanical and mag netic properties
The magnetic and mechanical properties of nanostructured Fe70Pd30 films produced via potentiostatic electrodeposition and radio frequency sputtering were investigated and correlated with their microstructure
The sputtered films, independently from their thickness, were single phase with a body-centred cubic structure belonging to a supersaturated solid solution of α – (Fe,Pd)
Summary
Iron-palladium alloys arise great attention from the technological viewpoint as they show a unique and very interesting combination of mechanical and mag netic properties. Electrodeposition is commonly referred to as a cost-effective, faster technique which can coat larger substrate sizes compared to physical and chemical vapour deposition techniques, many film properties (roughness, crystal structure, type of defects, etc.) largely depend on the specific parameters applied to grow the material. Studies on the influence of the substrate type and the deposition conditions on the properties of Fe-Pd films, and of Fe70Pd30 alloy films, in particular, obtained by either electrodeposition [16,20,21] or sputtering [12,22] are available in the literature, a comparative study on the impact of the deposition technique (in particular, elec trodeposition versus sputtering) is missing. This is addressed for Fe70Pd30 composition while trying to keep the rest of parameters involved in the processes (e.g. substrate type, film thickness) the same or as much comparable as possible
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