STRUCTURAL, MORPHOLOGICAL, ELECTRICAL AND MAGNETIC PROPERTIES OF NANOSTRUCTURED CoFe THIN FILMS PREPARED BY SPRAY PYROLYSIS DEPOSITION METHOD
Nanostructured CoFe thin films were prepared on the glass substrates by spray pyrolysis deposition (SPD) method. The as-deposited films were separately annealed at 500°C in ambient air and hydrogen atmospheres to investigate the effect of annealing atmosphere on different properties of the deposited films. Structural, morphological, magnetic and electrical properties of annealed thin films were investigated by the X-ray diffractometer (XRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM), vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM) and four-point probe measurements, respectively. XRD patterns show that by changing the annealing atmosphere from ambient air to hydrogen, the crystal structure transformed from cubic spinel phase (Fd-3m) to cubic CsCl -type phase (Pm-3m). SEM images demonstrated that the morphology, grain size and thickness of annealed thin films depend greatly on the atmosphere type. Thickness of the films annealed in ambient air and hydrogen atmosphere were 378 and 356 nm, respectively. The morphology of the films changes from small sized granular for the ambient air-annealed films to coral-like structures for the hydrogen atmosphere annealed films. The magnetic properties of the annealed thin films depend on the annealing atmosphere, the applied field directions and film microstructural properties. Hydrogen annealing induced a perpendicular magnetic anisotropy in CoFe thin films. Room temperature hysteresis measurements show soft magnetic behavior of the hydrogen atmosphere annealed CoFe films in the perpendicular direction suggested its application in perpendicular magnetic recording media.