A comparative study of the influence of the deposition technique (electrodeposition versus sputtering) on the properties of nanostructured Fe70Pd30 films

Sci Technol Adv Mater. 2020 Jul 13;21(1):424-434. doi: 10.1080/14686996.2020.1780097.

Abstract

Sputtering and electrodeposition are among the most widespread techniques for metallic thin film deposition. Since these techniques operate under different principles, the resulting films typically show different microstructures even when the chemical composition is kept fixed. In this work, films of Fe70Pd30 were produced in a thickness range between 30 and 600 nm, using both electrodeposition and sputtering. The electrodeposited films were deposited under potentiostatic regime from an ammonia sulfosalicylic acid-based aqueous solution. Meanwhile, the sputtered films were deposited from a composite target in radio frequency regime. Both approaches were proven to yield high quality and homogenous films. However, their crystallographic structure was different. Although all films were polycrystalline and Fe and Pd formed a solid solution with a body-centered cubic structure, a palladium hydride phase was additionally detected in the electrodeposited films. The occurrence of this phase induced internal stress in the films, thereby influencing their magnetic properties. In particular, the thickest electrodeposited Fe70Pd30 films showed out-of-plane magnetic anisotropy, whereas the magnetization easy axis lied in the film plane for all the sputtered films. The domain pattern of the electrodeposited films was investigated by magnetic force microscopy. Finally, nanoindentation studies highlighted the high quality of both the sputtered and electrodeposited films, the former exhibiting higher reduced Young's modulus and Berkovich hardness values.

Keywords: 105 Low-Dimension (1D/2D) materials; 106 Metallic materials; 203 Magnetics / Spintronics / Superconductors; 301 Chemical syntheses / processing; 303 Mechanical / Physical processing; 306 Thin film / Coatings; 503 TEM; 504 X-ray / Neutron diffraction and scattering; FePd alloy; SEM; STEM; electrodeposition; magnetic properties; mechanical properties; perpendicular magnetic anisotropy; sputtering; stripe domains; thin films.

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the Generalitat de Catalunya [2017-SGR-292]; H2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions [ITN/ETN - 642642]; Spanish Government [MAT2017-86357-C3-1-R, associated FEDER].