This review seeks to summarize the recent developments in the synthesis, structural characterization, properties, and applications in the ®elds of amorphous, bulk amorphous, and nanocrystalline soft magnetic materials. Conventional physical metallurgical approaches to improving soft ferromagnetic properties have relied on the optimization of chemical and microstructural features. Within the las...

A class of nanocrystalline alloys, HITPERM ~Fe, Co!–M–B–Cu (M5Zr,Hf,Nb, etc.! found to exhibit excellent soft-magnetic properties is being studied for use as a soft-magnetic underlayer for perpendicular recording media. Previously, we reported that HITPERM films of ;100 nm thickness sputtered at room temperature ~RT! and at ;2.3 W/cm power density had exhibited an amorphous microstructure, whic...

− The article surveys amorphous and nanocrystalline alloys for soft magnetic applications. Both materials have much in common starting from their way of production and ranging over to the key factors which determine their properties. Thus, the magneto-crystalline anisotropy is randomly fluctuating on a scale much smaller than the domain wall width and, as a consequence, is averaged out by excha...