Properties of ion-beam-sputtered Ni/Fe artificial lattice film

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Abstract
This paper reports the results of experimental and analytical investigations into the properties of ion-beam-sputtered Ni/Fe artificial lattice films. Through structure analysis, it is known that the Fe layer has poor crystallinity and the Ni layer has a face-centered-cubic structure with strong preferred orientation. Additionally, the Ni/Fe lattice film is found to possess good soft-magnetic properties with lower coercivity less than 1 Oe and uniaxial anisotropy as the lattice period is decreased. The saturation magnetization and magnetostriction are also confirmed to be controlled by changing the lattice period and the thickness of Ni and Fe layers. As a result of the simplest model analysis, the very small magnetostriction obtained in this experiment is thought to be realized by the balance in magnetostriction among Ni, Fe, and Ni-Fe interdiffusion layers. Furthermore, a good domain structure is observed in the Ni/Fe lattice film with very small magnetostriction.