Deposition of (Ni80Fe20)100–<italic>x</italic>Cr<italic>x</italic> Alloy Thin Films for Potential Applications in Magnetic Recording Media

Abstract

This paper reports the results of investigation on deposition and characterization of (Ni80Fe20)100– x Cr x ( $x = 20$ , 40, 60, 80) alloy thin films onto Si (100) substrates at room temperature by direct current (dc) magnetron sputtering. Hysteresis loops on vibrating sample magnetometer graphs indicate that the addition of Cr increases coercivity of (Ni80Fe20)80Cr20 and (Ni80Fe20)60Cr40 films, whereas (Ni80Fe20)40Cr60 and (Ni80Fe20)20Cr80 films indicate no significant hysteresis loops. X-ray diffraction (XRD) results confirm that thin film samples are found to have face-centered-cubic structure with the preferred orientation mostly along (111) diffraction plane. In addition, crystallite size calculations were obtained from the Scherrer equation. Finally, the surface topography of the films is analyzed by means of the atomic force microscopy technique and correlated with XRD patterns. Our results suggest that Cr addition has a significant influence on the magnetic and structural properties of (Ni80Fe20)100– x Cr x thin films.