Surface morphology of the grain of permalloy films.

Surface morphologies of sputtered permalloy films were investigated by SEM. Grain sizes became small with the inclination of the substrate or the presence of N2 in sputtering gas. Preferred orientations of permalloy films were changed from <111> to <100> by the N2 presence. SEM observation of crystal orientations suggested that the changes of the preferred orientations of permalloy films were caused by reduction of the surface energy, which was, in turn, thought to be caused by nitrogen adsorption.