Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
---|---|---|---|---|
1671006 | Thin Solid Films | 2010 | 9 Pages |
Abstract
Thermal annealing of [Fe 1.65Â nm/Pt 1.84Â nm]50 multilayers at 673Â K for various annealing times between 60 and 12000Â s leads to the direct formation of the fully ordered L10 FePt phase with (111) texture. The average grain sizes, determined from X-ray diffraction size-strain analysis, are smaller than the critical size for multi-domain FePt particles, suggesting the presence of single-domain (SD) grains. The coercivity increases with annealing time and increasing grain size and reaches values of about 955Â kA/m. The remanence values are typical for randomly oriented weakly-interacting particles. A decrease of the remanence with annealing time suggests a decrease of the intergrain exchange interactions with annealing time. Analysis of minor loops and the initial magnetization curves shows the presence of a broad distribution of critical fields, which the individual SD particles have to overcome for the magnetization reversal.
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Authors
N. Zotov, R. Hiergeist, A. Savan, A. Ludwig,