Oblique-field annealing effect for in-plane magnetic anisotropy of soft magnetic Co-Nb-Zr thin films

The effect of annealing in a magnetic field applied obliquely to the surface of soft magnetic thin films has been investigated. This annealing method was found to be extremely effective to control in-plane magnetic anisotropy without a change of annealing temperature and to suppress local anisotropy dispersion. For sputtered amorphous Co/sub 85.5/Nb/sub 8.9/Zr/sub 5.6/ thin films, it has been found that the in-plane uniaxial anisotropy energy was varied from 250 J/m/sup 3/ to near zero with the coercive force H/sub c/ less than 6.5 A/m by changing the oblique-field annealing angle /spl alpha/. Experimental values of in-plane anisotropy energy agreed well with calculated ones predicted from /spl alpha/ and intrinsic anisotropy induced by quasi-directional ordering. These films showed good high frequency characteristics for applying to miniaturized inductive devices.>