Crystal structure,microstructure and magnetic properties of SmCo-based films treated by different annealing methods

Effect of conventional thermal annealing(CTA) and rapid recurrent thermal annealing(RRTA) processes on crystal structure,mi-crostructure,and magnetic properties of the SmCo-based films were investigated.The results indicated that the CTA-treated films exhibited poor permanent magnetic properties,and a low intrinsic coercivity of 72.8 kA/m was observed.Wide hysteresis loop was obtained for the RRTA-treated films,providing better permanent magnetic properties.The intrinsic coercivity reached 312.0 kA/m.According to the X-ray diffraction(XRD) and atomic force microscopy(AFM) results,the magnetic properties of the CTA-treated films and RRTA-treated films were found to be correlated with the crystal structure and microstructure,which were strongly determined by the annealing treatment.CTA treatment led to poor crystallization effects for the films,and a rough surface(RMS=3.47 nm and P-V=35.42 nm) and large grain size of 92.7 nm were observed correspondingly.However,the RRTA treatment exhibited great contributions on the crystallization of the films,which is accountable for the smooth surface(RMS=2.047 nm and P-V=16.43 nm) and fine grain size of 60.8 nm.