Crystallography of Co/Cr bilayer magnetic thin films

Various crystallographic textures of Co-alloy/Cr bilayer thin films are discussed based on microdiffraction and selected-area diffraction (SAD) results. In order to understand the origin of the crystallographic texture of the Co thin films, the orientation relationships between the Co and Cr grains were determined by the electron microdiffraction technique. From this information, we suggest that the {110} Cr underlayer texture may not necessarily be required to obtain the highest in-plane coercivity in Co films. In order to evaluate the crystallographic texture of the film by SAD patterns, normalized intensity of SAD patterns for various thin-film textures have been calculated. Using these calculations, we interpret the SAD patterns taken from various Co and Cr thin films.