Micrometer thick soft magnetic films with magnetic moments restricted strictly in plane by negative magnetocrystalline anisotropy

TL;DR

This paper reports the development of micrometer thick soft magnetic films with magnetic moments confined in-plane due to negative magnetocrystalline anisotropy, exhibiting excellent magnetic properties suitable for future applications.

Contribution

It introduces a method to grow thick c-axis oriented hcp-Co84Ir16 films with in-plane magnetic moments, overcoming typical domain structure issues in soft magnetic thin films.

Findings

Films exhibit excellent soft magnetic properties despite their thickness

Magnetic moments are strictly confined in-plane due to negative anisotropy

High-frequency properties are promising for future applications

Abstract

Stripe domains or any other type domain structures with part of their magnetic moments deviating from the film plane, which usually occur above a certain film thickness, are known problems that limit their potential applications for soft magnetic thin films (SMTFs). In this work, we report the growth of micrometer thick c-axis oriented hcp-Co84Ir16 SMTFs with their magnetic moments restricted strictly in plane by negative magnetocrystalline anisotropy. Extensive characterizations have been performed on these films, which show that they exhibit very good soft magnetic properties even for our micrometer thick films. Moreover, the anisotropy properties and high-frequency properties were thoroughly investigated and our results show very promising properties of these SMTFs for future applications.