저널

We investigated compositional separation of Co-23%Cr magnetic alloy thin films with varying film thicknesses. Saturation magnetization and magnetic microstructures were investigated using vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM) and scanning probe microscope (SPM), respectively. Saturation magnetization was as 700 emu/cc for films below 50 nm-thick, and changed to 430 emu/cc for the ones above 2000 nm-thick. This may be due to increment of molar volume of Cr-enriched phase as film thickness increases. The surface grain size in AFM (atomic force microscope) measurement becomes larger as film thickness increases. The MFM (magnetic force microscope) reveals that magnetic microstructure is changed from the fine spherical domains to the maze type domains as film thickness increases. We conclude that employing thickness of Co-22%Cr films below 50 nm is favorable for high density recording in order to enhance perpendicular saturation magnetization and SNR (signal to noise ratio).