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 coercivity of such films can be significantly improved if changing from homogeneous to granular films or even to arrays of FePt nanoislands.
This contribution describes the formation of self-assembled FePt nanoislands at single-crystalline Si(001) or amorphous SiO2/Si substrates after conventional DC magnetron sputtering. FePt is sputtered (0.5 Å/s) from an alloy target at a substrate temperature of approx. 300°C to an equivalent film thickness of 10 nm. The island formation and the low-temperatureL10 ordering are stimulated by an ultrathin Ag buffer layer. The well-separated FePt islands exhibit a quite regular size of typical 20 - 30 nm. X-ray diffraction investigations reveal the existence of L10 ordered FePt grains; a preferred orientation of the grains has been found for the islands deposited at the crystalline substrate. However, it is noteworthy that the island formation is obtained both for crystalline and amorphous substrate surfaces 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.