Anomalous variation of coercivity with annealing in nanocrystalline NiZn ferrite films

Abstract

The sputter deposited NiZn ferrite thin films were studied as a function of annealing temperature. The magnetization showed a monotonic increase with increasing annealing temperature. The coercivity shows a minimum at annealing temperature of 400 °C and shows a value of 14 Oe. Transmission electron microscopy study indicated that the grain size increases from ∼3 nm for the as-deposited case to ∼15 nm for the film annealed at 800 °C. The observed coercivity behavior could be attributed to the defects present in the films, the change in cation distribution, and the grain growth.