Nitrogen-doped iron-film-based laminated materials for thin-film recording heads

We have systematically studied nitrogen-doped iron (FeN) multilayer films aiming to achieve very small coercivity and near-zero magnetostriction simultaneously by varying the multilayer structure and sputtering parameters used to deposit the FeN layers. Multilayers using SiO2, NiFe, and CoZrRe have been studied. Films with a saturation magnetization of above 20 kG, a coercivity of 0.4 Oe, a magnetostriction constant of less than 5 × 10−7, and a hard-axis dc permeability of 4000 have been obtained.