A comparative study of CoZrNb and NiFe targets in discharge and sputtering using plasma confining type of magnetron sputtering method

CoZrNb and NiFe films have been deposited by a plasma-confining type magnetron sputtering method which can greatly improve the utilization efficiency of a magnetic alloy target with high permeability and completely suppress the bombardment of the substrate by high-energy γ-electrons. Applying an auxiliary solenoid magnetic field H _E perpendicular to the target plane improved the target utilization efficiencies in volume for CoZrNb and NiFe targets from 32 to 51% and from 25 to 41%, respectively. In both targets, the maximum deposition rates were above 0.2 μm/min. All CoZrNb films deposited by this method were composed of FCC-phase crystallites with the NiFe(111) plane parallel to the film plane. When H_E was applied to CoZrNb films, the saturation magnetization 4πM _s and the coercivity H_c varied from 11.5 to 14 kG and from 0.1 to 0.9 Oe, respectively. For NiFe films, 4πM_s and H_c were constants of about 9.5 kG and about 0.5 Oe, respectively