Investigation of the Properties of Magnetic Films Deposited on Carbon Nitride A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Bachelor of Science with Honors in Physics from the College of William and Mary in Virginia

The purpose of this study is to investigate the magnetic and structural properties of nickel films when deposited on hard and amorphous carbon thin films. We are interested in both magnetic properties related to the giant magnetoresistive effect, such as saturation magnetization and field coercivity and changes in roughness of the films. These films were also annealed to determine whether or not temperature would affect them greatly. Since each film must be heated in order to deposit another layer of carbon to produce a multilayer film, we must discover what these changes are and how they influence the above properties.