A comparison of rapid-annealed FePt and FePd thin films: Internal stress, L10 ordering, and texture

Abstract Effect of rapid thermal annealing (RTA) on the crystallographic orientation and magnetic properties in single-layered FePt and FePd films has been characterized. A huge biaxial tensile stress of ∼2 GPa was induced in the L 1 0 -FePt thin films after an RTA of 800 °C, which resulted in a significant orientation transition from (111) to (001) texture. On the other hand, in case of the FePd films, only a small in-plane tensile stress (∼0.5 GPa) was accumulated, which caused that the orientation barely changed from a (111) texture to isotropic state. These results suggest that the high ordering temperature and low tensile stress were the likely reasons why RTA has no effect on texture formation of the FePd films.