Electro-deposition of Fe–Tb–O films with ac currents for use in high frequency micromagnetic devices

Abstract

Electro-deposition of Fe–Tb–O films was attempted using ac currents with low frequency. The film composition, especially Tb content of films, was found to be sensitive to the concentration of complex agent, KNaC 4H 4O 6: when KNaC 4H 4O 6=283.47 mM, plated films with very high Tb content reaching 29 at.% were obtained, in spite of the difficulty in electro-deposition of Tb owing to its very low catalytic activity. Coercivity H c and squareness ratio M r/ M S of films varied considerably depending strongly on the intensity of ac current i: when i=0.67 A/dm 2, films with relatively soft magnetic properties of H c=29O e and M r/ M S=0.93 were realized.