NiAl underlayers for CoCrTa magnetic thin films

CoCrTa films were sputter-deposited on either NiAl or Cr underlayers on glass substrates and their coercivities were compared. The NiAl film was found have the B2 structure with a lattice parameter of /spl sim/0.288 nm. The grain size of a 100 nm NiAl film is /spl sim/15 nm, which is about 50% smaller than a similarly deposited Cr film. As for the CoCrTa/Cr films the CoCrTa/NiAl films show a similar increase of the in-plane coercivity with thickening of the underlayer. X-ray diffraction studies showed that CoCrTa/NiAl films have a stronger (101~0) peak than CoCrTa/Cr films. Substrate heating and biasing during deposition of the NiAl underlayer are less helpful than in the case of Cr underlayer.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">></ETX>