Influence of Ga evaporation rate on the magnetic properties of amorphous FeGaSiB thin films

In this study, amorphous FeGaSiB thin films have been fabricated on silicon (100) substrates using a co-sputtering-evaporation deposition system. By fixing the sputtering parameters (chamber pressure and power of the FeSiB target), and only varying the Ga evaporation rate, how the morphology, magnetic properties, and magnetostriction constants changed with the addition of Ga were investigated. This was to increase the Ga concentration, while maintaining the optimized fabrication parameters established in previous work. It was determined that the percentage of Ga increased linearly as the Ga evaporation rate was increased. The x-ray diffraction (XRD) results indicated that all the films were amorphous and the only detected peaks were for the Si substrate. The results showed that varying Ga evaporation rate, thus Ga content, affected the magnetic properties of the films by reducing the saturation induction along with increasing the uniaxial anisotropy within the films. The magnetostriction constants measured were in the range of 10.2 ppm to 17.2 ppm.