Direct evidence for stress-induced (001) anisotropy of rapid-annealed FePt thin films

Roles of rapid thermal annealing (RTA) on the evolution of crystallographic anisotropy of single-layered FePt films have been characterized. We observed a huge biaxial tensile stress of 2.18 GPa induced with increasing heating rate from 0.5 to 40 K/s. The result is a transition of orientation from (111) to perfect (001) texture. The later then degrades at heating rates >= 80 K/s due to morphological variation. The advantages of RTA are to induce tensile stress by densification reaction within a very short time and to simultaneously impede thickness-dependent dynamic stress relaxation. (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4730963]