Granular L10 FePt nanocomposite films fabricated by rapid thermal annealing

Granular (FePt)(100-x)-(NiO)(x) nanocomposite thin films with x = 0-42 vol% were fabricated on a natural-oxidized Si(100) substrate. It is found that both the coercivity and FePt domain size decrease with increasing NiO content for the (FePt)(100-x)-(NiO)(x) films. When the FePt-NiO composite film with NiO content of 10.4 vol% is post-annealed at 750 degrees C with a high heating ramp rate of 100 degrees C/s, the in-plane coercivity (H-c parallel to) and perpendicular coercivity (H-c perpendicular to) of the FePt films are 513 and 430 kA/m, respectively. On the other hand, we used conductive atomic force microscope (CAFM) to confirm that the NiO compound is distributed at boundary of FePt particles that will constrain the domain size of FePt and decrease the exchange coupling interactions between FePt magnetic particles. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.