Texture in cobalt films deposited obliquely by sputtering

Abstract

The texture in cobalt films deposited obliquely by sputtering was investigated by analysing the magnetic anisotropy in addition to the X-ray analysis. The incidence angle was 45° and the substrate temperature was 332 K. The film thickness ranged from 0.4 to 3.8 μm. The {0002}, {1120}, {1011} and {1011} pole figures obtained by the X-ray Schulz method showed that crystallites in the film have two preferential axes: the [1120] direction of most crystallites lies in a direction in the incidence plane and the [0001] direction points in the direction perpendicular to the incidence plane. The thickness dependence of the magnetic anisotropy indicated that the same type of two-degree orientation exists irrespective of thickness. However, the degree of orientation becomes low with decreasing thickness. The depth profiling of the magnetic anisotropy revealed that the texture evolved in a thin film remains at the lower part of the thick film. © 1994.