Effect of anisotropic incidence and atomic arrangement of CoFe system magnetic thin films for the gigahertz frequency in the carousel sputtering method

To increase the uniaxial magnetic anisotropy in thin-film materials is a key issue for micro-magnetic devices driven at gigahertz frequencies. It is known that an especially large uniaxial magnetic anisotropy is induced only by the carousel sputtering method. In this paper, the atomic deposition process of CoFeB and CoFe films was analyzed by using a simulation of kinetic theory of gases. The results showed that the sputtered particles had markedly anisotropic incidence on the substrate, leading to different atomic distances with respect to the direction of incidence, resulting in a magnetioelastic effect. These sputtered particles with anisotropic incidence are a main cause of the higher uniaxial magnetic anisotropy of the films. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electron Comm Jpn, 95(6): 58–65, 2012; Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com). DOI 10.1002/ecj.10426