Fabrication of self-assembled L10 ordered FePt nanoislands by conventional DC magnetron sputtering

L10 ordered c-axis oriented FePt thin films belong to the most promising ferromagnetic materials for future magnetic storage media. The layer coercivity can be significantly improved if changing from a homogeneous to granular film morphology, or even to arrays of FePt nanoislands.
This contribution describes the formation of self-assembled FePt nanoislands by conventional DC magnetron sputtering deposition on single-crystalline Si(001) or amorphous SiO2/Si substrates. The deposition was performed with substrate temperature of 320 °C and a working pressure of 0.4 Pa. In these conditions the deposition rate for FePt is about 0.4 Å/s, leading to an equivalent film thickness of 6 nm. An ultra thin Ag buffer layer, deposited in the same working conditions but with a deposition rate of about 1 Å/s, that, because of its nanoparticulate morphology, is supporting the islands formation.
The well-separated FePt islands exhibit a quite regular size of typical 20 – 30 nm, for both employed substrates. X-ray diffraction analysis reveals the existence of L10 ordered FePt phase. However, it is noteworthy that the islands formation is obtained both for crystalline and amorphous substrate which is of significant practical relevance. The enhanced coercivity of patterned FePt films with respect to homogeneous FePt layers has been confirmed by SQUID measurements. The formation of the nanoisland structure is discussed in terms of the adatom surface mobility, the influence of energetic ions and the ratio of surface to stress-energy during thin film deposition.