Soft magnetic properties of microcrystalline CoFeSiB alloys prepared by sputtering

Abstract

The magnetic and structural properties of microcrystalline CoFeSiB films prepared by sputtering were studied. This new soft-magnetic material exhibits a high rotational permeability of 1200 combined with a high saturation magnetization of 1.6T. The soft-magnetic properties of this material can be explained by the fact that the thin film consists of f.c.c. crystallites with a perfect <111> texture normal to the film plane. Because of this textyre and the multiple twinning of the crystallites a six-fold symmetry and thus a small inplane anisotropy are obtained.