Magnetic properties of amorphous alloy films of Fe with Gd, Tb, Dy, Ho, or Er

Abstract

Amorphous rare-earth RE(Gd, Tb, Dy, Ho, Er) -Fe films prepared by cosputtering were studied. The compositional analysis was obtained from known deposition profiles, x-ray microanalysis, and the stripe-width measurements. The structural variation with composition change was investigated by electron diffraction and dark-field microscopy. The Curie temperature Tc, the compensation temperature Tcomp, the coercive force Hc, the uniaxial anisotropy energy Ku and the static domain properties such as the stripe width Ws, the wall energy σw, and the exchange stiffness constant A were investigated. The systematic variation of Tc and Tcomp associated with a variation of composition and RE species could be described by the Heiman et al. model. The static domain properties could be interpreted in terms of the wall energy model and the mean field approximation of the exchange stiffness constant A.