FABRICATION AND CHARACTERIZATION OF FePtAg-C NANOGRANULAR THIN FILMS

We fabricated FePtAg-C granular thin film on a bare silicon substrate by magnetron sputtering method. A MgO interlayer was grown on the substrate to induce the L10 order in the FePt alloy film. The addition of carbon can reduce the grain size of FePt， and the addition of Ag can help enhance the L10 order in the FePt film in a relatively low temperature. Then we applied XRD， SQUID and high-resolution TEM to measure its texture， magnetic properties， and microstructures， respectively. Results show that the FePt film has excellent L10 order， and the squareness of M-H loop is close to 1 ， with a high perpendicular coercivity of 2 467 kA/m. The microstructure shows that it has small grain size of 10.4 nm with uniform distribution. This magnetic FePt film is a promising candidate for perpendicular magnetic recording media with high density.