Structure and the magnetic and magneto-optical properties of Co-Sm-O nanogranular films

Abstract

The magnetic properties and magneto-optical effects in nanocomposites based on Co-Sm-O films prepared through pulsed plasma sputtering of a SmCo5 target are investigated. It is shown that, depending on the technological conditions and regimes of subsequent annealing, the films can have different structures from cobalt nanoparticles distributed in the dielectric samarium oxide matrix with a magnetic phase volume of more than 60% to a continuous polycrystalline cobalt film with embedded samarium oxide nanoparticles. The evolution of the spectra of the magneto-optical Kerr effect and the field dependences of the magnetization is studied as a function of the film structure.