Structure and magnetic properties of columnar Fe-N thin films deposited by direct current magnetron sputtering

Abstract

Columnar Fe-N thin films with thickness ranging from 30 to 150 nm were deposited by direct current magnetron sputtering using an Ar/N 2 gas mixture ( V(N 2)/ V(N 2+Ar)=5%) on corning glass substrates. The structure, surface morphology and magnetic properties were investigated using X-ray diffractometry(XRD), scanning electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy, transmission electron microscopy(TEM) and superconducting quantum interference magnetometry. XRD investigation shows that Fe-N films exhibit amorphous-like structures; however, TEM measurements indicate the synthesis of mixture phases of α-Fe+ ζ-Fe 2N+ ɛ-Fe 3N in these films. The magnetic anisotropy and coercivity of Fe-N thin films exhibit strong dependence on the film growth behavior and surface morphology. With increasing the height of Fe-N films with column structures, the coercivity increases from 7.96 kA/m to 22.28 kA/m in the direction parallel to the film surface. In perpendicular direction the coercivity only increases slightly from 39.79 kA/m to 43.77 kA/m. However, the values of anisotropy field increase from 0.79×10 6 to 1.44×10 6 A/m, which is mainly attributed to the shape anisotropy of elongated columns due to the fact that the difference of magneto-crystalline anisotropy among these Fe-N films is small. The saturation magnetizations of Fe-N films vary with increasing film thickness from 23.5 to 85.1 A·m 2/kg.