High coercivity, epitaxial Sm–Co films with uniaxial in-plane anisotropy

Abstract

Epitaxial Sm–Co(11̄00) and (112̄0) films have been grown by magnetron sputtering onto Cr(211) and (100) buffer layers, respectively. The Sm–Co(11̄00) films exhibit uniaxial in-plane anisotropies of ≈20–25 T and room-temperature coercive fields that increase to 4.1 T as the film thickness decreases to 75 Å. The 3 T coercivities of the (112̄0) films are independent of thickness.