https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2005-00168-5
Influence of Ni content on the microstructure and magnetic and magneto-optical properties of sputtered (Co1-xNix)Pt3 alloy films
1
Instrumental Analysis Center, Shanghai Jiaotong University, 1954 Huashan
Road, Shanghai 200030, China
2
Shanghai Institute of Metallurgy, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 865 Changning
Road, Shanghai 200050, China
3
Department of Physics, Hanyang University, Seoul 133-791, Korea
Corresponding author: a zqzou@sjtu.edu.cn
Received:
15
February
2005
Published online:
16
June
2005
Influence of Ni content on the microstructure and magnetic and
magneto-optical (MO) properties of sputtered (Co1-xNix)Pt3
alloy films has been investigated by means of Kerr spectrometer, Kerr
hysteresis looper, X-ray diffractometer (XRD), and atomic force microscopy
(AFM). On the whole, the addition of Ni to the CoPt3 alloy film
simultaneously decreases the Curie temperature TC and the Kerr rotation
angle , but the decrease of TC with Ni content is more
visible. When the Ni content x is increased from 0 to 0.33, TC
decreases from 273 °C to 233 °C, whereas the decrease of
is quite limited and the film still preserves a strong
perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA) and a high coercivity, indicating
that the (Co1-xNix)Pt3 alloy film with x=0.33 can be used
for practical MO applications. Further increase of Ni content decreases the
significantly and destroys the PMA. XRD and AFM studies show
that adding a small amount of Ni in the CoPt3 alloy film will promote
the growth of grains and roughen the film surface, and thus enhance the
coercivity of the film. We observe also that both the coercivity and PMA are
not sensitive to the (111) preferred orientation of the (Co1-xNix
)Pt3 alloy films.
PACS: 75.70.Ak – Magnetic properties of monolayers and thin films / 75.50.Ss – Magnetic recording materials / 85.70.Sq – Magnetooptical devices
© EDP Sciences, Società Italiana di Fisica, Springer-Verlag, 2005