Influence of Deposition Parameters of Novel Vacuum Coating Plant on Evaporated Ni60Fe40 and Ni80Fe20 Films

The aim of this study is to deposit and then characterize a large quantity of magnetic materials and understand how the Novel Vacuum Coating Plant (VCP) system affects the properties of the materials. Ni60Fe40 and Ni80Fe20 were the compositions chosen for the investigation. The films were deposited on rigid and flexible substrates using the novel VCP. Data from Inductively Coupled Plasma Atomic Emission Spectrometry analysis performed on the source alloys confirmed that element concentrations were within 0.3% of the compositions. The X-ray diffraction patterns indicated that all films have face-centred cubic structure. Ni60Fe40 films evaporated on a polyimide (kapton™) substrate showed anisotropic behaviour due to the flexible nature of the substrate, aided by the relatively high magnetostriction caused by the composition, whereas the films produced on glass substrates exhibit only isotropic magnetisation irrespective of their compositions. Observations indicate that in-plane anisotropy and coercivity is dependent on the type of substrates and the compositions. All films showed planar magnetic anisotropy. It is seen that large film areas can be produced and their properties were affected by the deposition parameters in the VCP system.