Comparison of microstructures and magnetic properties in FePt alloy films deposited by direct current magnetron sputtering and high power impulse magnetron sputtering

Abstract Single-layered FePt films of 30 nm thickness with random orientation are produced by direct current magnetron sputtering (DCMS) deposited directly onto Corning 1737 glass substrates and then post-annealed at 700 °C for 30 min. In films produced by high power impulse magnetron sputtering (HiPIMS) however, a strong (001) texture of L1 0 FePt film with isolated island structure is achieved and presents high perpendicular magnetic anisotropy after post-annealing under the same conditions. This is due to the compressive stress in as-deposited FePt films being enhanced greatly by HiPIMS. The films achieved by HiPIMS possess perpendicular coercivity, saturation magnetization and perpendicular squareness of 14.2 kOe, 620 emu/cm 3 and 0.98, respectively, which reveal HiPIMS as a good technique to produce single-layered FePt films with high perpendicular magnetic properties.