Fabrication and microstructure of high coercivity FePt thin films at 400 °C -: art. no. 052503

L1(0) phase FePt thin films deposited on MgO (100) single-crystal substrate with good (001) texture were investigated. Epitaxial growth of the FePt (001) films was observed with a deposition temperature of 400 degrees C. With ultrathin Ag intermediate layers deposited between FePt layers, the film structures changed from an interconnection network to an isolated-island character. The perpendicular coercivity of the FePt film dramatically increased from 6.5 to 32.5 kOe. The improvement of the magnetic properties may be attributed to the formation of island structures by the additive Ag in the FePt films. (c) 2006 American Institute of Physics.