Structure and magnetic properties of compositionally modulated Tb‐Fe thin films (abstract)

Artificially layered structures have attracted attention because of their unique structural and magnetic characteristics. It has been reported that in these structures the anisotropic distribution of atomic pairs can play an important role in determining their magnetic anisotropy.1 Our previous work showed that the application of substrate bias in a rf diode sputtering system was effective in producing dense and stable amorphous compositionally modulated films (CMFs).2 In this work, we studied the interrelationships of the structural and magnetic properties of amorphous Tb‐Fe CMFs deposited under various substrate bias conditions (0, −70, −90 V) in a multitarget rf diode sputtering system. Although considerable research has been conducted on the effect of ion bombardment during deposition on the film structure, it has been difficult to independently control the film structure and the composition in such experiments because of the preferential backsputtering of atoms.Accordingly, in this research we system...