Structural, electrical and magnetic properties of evaporated Ni/Cu and Ni/glass thin films

The structural, electrical and magnetic properties of Ni thin films evaporated onto glass and polycrystalline Cu substrates have been investigated. The Ni thickness ranges from 31 to 165 nm. X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM) have been used to study the structure and morphology of these systems. The Ni/Cu and Ni/glass thin films are found to be polycrystalline with a (1 1 1) texture. There is an overall increase of the grain size with increasing thickness. A negative strain was noted indicating that all the samples are under a compressive stress. Diffusion at the grain boundaries seems to be a major contribution to the electrical resistivity in this thickness range. Study of the hysteresis curves, obtained by vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM), indicates that all samples are characterized by an in-plane magnetization easy axis. Higher in-plane coercive fields seem to be associated with higher grain size, indicating that coercivity may be due to nucleation of reverse domains rather than pinning of domain walls. The saturation field and the squareness have been studied as a function of the Ni thickness.