Effect of surface cleaning of substrate on the exchange coupling field in Ni-Fe/25at%Ni-Mn films

Author

Tsunoda, M. ; Konoto, M. ; Uneyama, K. ; Takahashi, M.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electron. Eng., Tohoku Univ., Sendai, Japan

Volume

33

Issue

5

fYear

1997

fDate

9/1/1997 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

3688

Lastpage

3690

Abstract

The effect of surface cleaning of Si(100) substrate on the exchange coupling field, H_ex was investigated for Ni-Fe/25 at% Ni-Mn films. H_ex measured at room temperature rapidly increased when the substrate surface was slightly (about 10 Å) etched by RF plasma just before film deposition, especially in the films with very thin (50 Å) Ni-Fe layer. From structural analysis of the films, and view of the temperature dependence of H_ex, it was concluded that the increase of H_ex was caused by the enlargement of γ-Ni-Mn grains epitaxially grown on the underlying Ni-Fe grains

Keywords

exchange interactions (electron); ferromagnetic materials; grain size; interface magnetism; iron alloys; magnetic multilayers; manganese alloys; nickel alloys; silicon; surface cleaning; γ-Ni-Mn grains; 10 A; 50 A; Ni-Fe/25at%Ni-Mn films; NiFe-NiMn; Si; Si(100) substrate; exchange coupling field; film deposition; structural analysis; substrate; surface cleaning; temperature dependence; Anisotropic magnetoresistance; Couplings; Dry etching; Epitaxial growth; Magnetic anisotropy; Magnetic films; Perpendicular magnetic anisotropy; Saturation magnetization; Substrates; Surface cleaning;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Magnetics, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9464

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/20.619539

Filename

619539