High-coercivity SmCo 5 thin film with in-plane or out-of-plane anisotropy

Abstract

In this work, we prepared high-coercivity SmCo₅ thin films with in-plane or out-of-plane anisotropy. Our research work focused on the induction of highly textured SmCo₅ thin films using suitable underlayers. A Cr underlayer was used for the fabrication of SmCo₅ with in-plane anisotropy. The nanocrystalline SmCo5 thin films with a (1120) texture exhibited high in-plane intrinsic coercivity up to 18.5 kOe. On the other hand, with a Cu underlayer, highly (0001) textured SmCo₅ thin films showed large perpendicular anisotropy and high coercivity up to 20 kOe. Our research work showed that a very thin seedlayer (4nm) of Ta can improve the crystallinity and texture of the (111) Cu underlayer. The high quality Cu underlayer can result in high magnetic performance of SmCo₅ thin films.