Effect of TiON-MgO intermediate layer on microstructure and magnetic properties of L10 FePt-C-SiO2 films

The microstructure and magnetic properties of L1(0) FePt-C-SiO2 films grown on TiON-MgO intermediate layer were studied. TiON-MgO layer was deposited by co-sputtering TiN and MgO-TiO2 targets at 380 degrees C. With increasing MgO-TiO2 doping concentration, the contact angle between FePt grains with intermediate layer gradually increased, and it was close to 90 degrees when the volume percentage of MgO-TiO2 reached 30%. At this condition, a high out-of-plane coercivity of 19.1 kOe was obtained, while the opening-up of in-plane M-H loop was very narrow. Moreover, it was found that the out-of-plane coercivity can be further improved to 21.6 kOe, by slightly increasing the percentage of MgO-TiO2 to 35 vol%. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.