Soft magnetic Fe-Al-N/Si-N multilayered film with high thermal stability

Abstract

An attempt to obtain soft magnetic materials with high saturation magnetic flux density and thermal stability has been carried out with respect to a multilayered type of films containing Fe-N prepared by two-source magnetron rf sputtering. The addition of small amounts of elements such as Al is effective in improving soft magnetic properties of Fe-N films. Multilayered films of Fe-Al-N intervened by thin Si-N layers showed softer magnetic properties than the Fe-Al-N single layer films and also showed high thermal stability. Typically, Fe-Al-N (500 Å)/Si-N (12 Å) multilayered films exhibited a saturation magnetic flux density of 20 kG, a coercivity Hc of 0.3 Oe, and a permeability μ of 1900 at 5 MHz after annealing at 550 °C for 1 h.