Magnetic anisotropy in Ni/Fe artificial lattice film

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Abstract
This paper presents an experimental investigation on the magnetic anisotropy and heat stability in Ni/Fe artificial lattice films. Magnetic anisotropy is found to increase as the lattice period and the Fe layer thickness decrease. The annealing of Ni/Fe films is shown to decrease hard-axis coercivity to 0.3 Oe. However, annealing at temperatures above 400 °C causes an increase in coercivity, perfect alloying of the Ni/Fe film, and recovery of the crystallinity of the Fe layer sandwiched between Ni layers. In the Ni/Fe (2/10 nm) film, very small magnetostriction and large saturation magnetization are maintained up to 350°C. A prototype thin-film head with a Ni/Fe yoke shows stable conventionally reproduced signals for small write currents, superior overwrite properties, and good heat stability at annealing temperatures below 300 °C.