Effect of Ag Additive on Magnetic Properties and Microstructure of the Copt-Sinx/Ag Granular Thin Films

When the Ag layer was introduced under the CoPt alloy film annealed at 700 °C, the CoPt/Ag films had great out-of-plane squareness (S⊥), out-of-plane coercivity (Hc⊥), and saturation magnetization (Ms). The SiNx ceramic materials were co-sputtered with CoPt on the Ag under layer then annealed to reduce the grain size of CoPt films. The particle size of CoPt was about 10 nm with 46.2 vol. % SiNx content. Furthermore, Ag was added into the CoPt-SiNx layer of CoPt-SiNx/Ag films to reduce the ordering temperature of L10 CoPt (fct phase) films.