Fabrication of L10-FeNi phase by sputtering with rapid thermal annealing

FeNi films were directly deposited on MgO(001) substrates by co-sputtering and rapid thermal annealing (RTA). The formation of the L10 phase was investigated for films with different thicknesses and different annealing conditions by grazing incidence X-ray diffraction. For the FeNi films with a thickness of 5 nm, superlattice 001 and 110 peaks were observed after annealing at a heating rate of 50 °C/s, which indicates that three variants of L10 grains were formed in the films. The maximum long-range order parameter, which corresponded to a volume-averaged parameter, was approximately 0.11. For the FeNi films with a thickness of 30 nm, a superlattice 110 peak was only observed after annealing at a heating rate of 50 °C/s, and the formation of 001 textured grains was clarified. Magnetic properties also changed depending on the FeNi film structures. The formation mechanism of L10-FeNi is discussed based on the strain caused by RTA in the FeNi films.