Effect of Pt layers on chemical ordering in FePt thin films

The tunability in the structural and magnetic phases present in RF-sputtered Fe3Pt thin films over Si (1 0 0) substrates have been studied by introducing thin films of platinum (Pt) as an underlayer and/or overlayers. Annealing of the Fe3Pt thin films with Pt underlayers (Pt/Fe3Pt) structures at 600 °C for 1 h, indicates well organized nanostructured grains as imaged through an atomic force microscope (AFM). The evolution of superstructure peaks as well as the preferred orientation along (0 0 1) plane observed in the X-ray diffraction (XRD) study is well supported by the magnetic measurements. These annealed Pt/Fe3Pt structures show high magnetocrystalline anisotropy and the presence of hard phase with a coercivity of 8.5 kOe. Here, the annealing process allows the adjacent Pt atoms to diffuse into the Fe3Pt unit cells and triggers the structural transformation to chemically ordered L10 phase. An additional L12 phase is observed in the annealed Fe3Pt thin films with Pt overlayer and underlayer (Pt/Fe3Pt/Pt) tri-layered structures.