Underlayer and substrate effects in RF-magnetron sputtered barium ferrite thin film media

Author

Wee, A.T.A. ; Wang, J.P. ; Huan, A.C.H. ; Tan, L.P. ; Gopalakrishnan, R. ; Tan, K.L.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Phys., Nat. Univ. of Singapore, Singapore

Volume

33

Issue

5

fYear

1997

fDate

9/1/1997 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

2986

Lastpage

2988

Abstract

The effect of employing various sputtered underlayers and commercially available substrates in order to optimize the characteristics of barium ferrite (BaM) thin films for magnetic recording media have been studied. Our results show that the choice of underlayer or substrate controls the resultant surface morphology and magnetic properties of the BaM film. In particular, it was found that barium ferrite thin films with high coercivity, good squareness, low switching field distribution (>5000 Oe, 0.92, and 0.58, respectively) and possessing a c-axis in-plane orientation texture were achieved when deposited on an amorphous sputtered underlayer of Al₂O₃. In addition, the use of an Al₂O₃ underlayer results in equiaxial barium ferrite grains which may allow a favorable reduction in intergranular interaction as evidenced by the characteristic ΔM curves

Keywords

barium compounds; coercive force; ferrites; magnetic hysteresis; magnetic thin films; sputtered coatings; Al₂O₃; BaFe₁₂O₁₉; RF-magnetron sputtered barium ferrite thin film; coercivity; equiaxial grains; intergranular interaction; magnetic properties; magnetic recording; squareness; substrate effect; surface morphology; switching field; texture; underlayer effect; Amorphous materials; Barium; Coercive force; Ferrite films; Magnetic films; Magnetic properties; Magnetic recording; Sputtering; Substrates; Surface morphology;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Magnetics, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9464

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/20.617819

Filename

617819