Interdiffusion and grain isolation in Co/Cr thin films

In this work, interdiffusion and grain isolation in Co/Cr films have been investigated by studying the dependence of the magnetic properties on the substrate preheating temperature as well as on post-deposition annealing processes. By choosing pure Co instead of a Co-alloy, the possibility of grain isolation caused by the segregation of solute atoms from within the magnetic layer has been eliminated. It is found that both post-deposition thermal annealing and substrate preheating can effectively increase the isolation of the Co grains