Barium ferrite thin film media with perpendicular c-axis orientation and small grain size

Barium ferrite thin films with perpendicular c-axis orientation and small grain size ~about 300 Å! were successfully fabricated with careful control of sputtering conditions. The c-axis orientation of barium ferrite thin films is most sensitive to the oxygen partial pressure during deposition. All samples with oxygen gas during deposition have a random c-axis texture, as indicated by existence of both weak (00l) peaks and ~106! peaks. All the samples without oxygen gas during deposition show only strong (00l) peaks, which indicate excellent perpendicular c-axis orientation. Transmission electron microscopy results show that oxygen gas promotes the growth of in-plane and/or randomly oriented grains. The effect of the Pt interlayer on the barium-rich films was also studied. The Pt interlayer was found to be very effective in improving c-axis orientation of barium-rich films. A relative increase in perpendicular nucleation sites over in-plane and/or random nucleation sites contributes to the improvement in perpendicular c-axis orientation. © 2000 American Institute of Physics. @S0021-8979~00!60808-3#