Effect of film thickness on magnetic properties of Cr/SmCo/Cr films

Cr/SmCo/Cr films with different SmCo thickness were deposited on glass substrates by magnetron sputtering,followed by an annealing process at 550 °C for 20 min.Experimental results showed that the SmCo film of 30 nm exhibited two-phase behavior in the demagnetization process,the obvious kink was observed near zero.For the SmCo film of 50 nm,the kink was invisible,and a single phase like behavior was obtained in the demagnetization process.The reversal behavior became consistent in the thicker films.Moreover,the coercivity reduced and the saturated magnetization increased obviously with the increasing thickness.X-ray diffraction results indicated that the average grain size of SmCo 5 in the thicker films were almost 30 nm,but the quantity of SmCo 5 grains increased with the increasing thickness,which enhanced the intergrain exchange coupling(IEC) of the SmCo 5 hard phases.The increase of IEC improved the magnetic properties of SmCo films with increasing thickness.