Preparation of soft magnetic films of nanocrystalline Fe–Cu–Nb–Si–B alloy by facing targets sputtering

Abstract

Soft magnetic thin films of nanocrystalline Fe–Cu–Nb–Si–B alloy were deposited using the facing targets sputtering (FTS) apparatus. It was found that the Fe–Cu–Nb–Si–B single layers thinner than 100 nm revealed good soft magnetic properties, of which the saturation magnetization 4πMs and the relative permeability μr were 11.3 kG and 500, respectively. However, when these films were thicker than 100 nm, their soft magnetic properties degraded due to the perpendicular magnetic anisotropy. On the other hand, the soft magnetic properties of the post-annealed films were improved owing to the release of stress in the films. Especially, μr of the post-annealed films with thickness of 120 nm increased drastically up to around 6200. Furthermore, Fe–Cu–Nb–Si–B/Al multilayers revealed superior soft magnetic properties due to the magnetostatic coupling between the two ferromagnetic layers. These multilayers post-annealed at 300 °C revealed softer magnetic properties than single layers. They exhibited very low coercivity Hc of 0.63 Oe, large 4πMs of 13.2 kG and high μr of 4600.