Properties of thin films of magnetic materials produced from DC Magnetron sputtering; the effects of substrate bias and the partial pressure of reactive gases

Abstract

The manner in which the coercivity, permeability and resistivity of films of Fe- M- X ( M : Ta, Hf, Zr, Nb; X: N, C, Ar;) and Permalloy varied because of particular conditions during DC magnetron sputter deposition has been determined. The effects of reactive gases and substrate bias during the sputtering process were studied and the measured values for H c′ μ and ϱ were compared with the results from formulae derived from gas impurity pinning and scattering theory. For Fe- M- X films, the coercivity could be modified from 1.2 Oe to 0.4 Oe and the permeability from 3 × 10 3 to 8.5 × 10 3 (1 MHz) by altering the partial pressure of nitrogen between 2 × 10 −5 Torr and 1 × 10 −4 Torr. The coercivity of Permalloy films could be adjusted from 8 Oe to 0.5 Oe and their permeability altered from 200 to 820 (1MHz) by changing the substrate bias between 0V and − 100V.