APPLICATIONS OF AMORPHOUS Fe-, CO-METALLOID AND RARE EARTH ALLOY THIN FILMS

Amorphous thin films of transition metal (TM)-metalloid and TM-rare earth (R) alloys have been prepared by sputtering and multiple-target, electron-beam vapor deposition. Application of these has been made in several technically important areas including continuously variable surface acoustic wave (SAW) delay lines or resonators and magneto-optic mirrors for biasing ringlaser-gyroscopes (RLG). This paper deals with preparation, characterization, and tailoring of these alloy films to meet the required performance parameters for each application. In most instances the magnetically soft TM-metalloid films such as Fe-B, Fe-Si-B, and Fe-Cr-P-C show the best performance characteristics for SAW devices and magnetically switchable mirrors. The magnetically hard R-TM alloy films such as Tb-Fe and Tb-Co are excellent candidates for use as polar magnetooptic mirrors.