Narrow stripe fabrication of soft magnetic materials by trench filling process

Low-pressure collimation sputtering was applied to trench filling with soft magnetic materials. Collimation and substrate bias were found effective to fill the trenches with a uniform film. NiFe and CoZrNb were tested as soft magnetic materials, and it was found that NiFe was suitable for the process. Stripes of NiFe about two micron wide and one micron high, and with excellent morphology, were fabricated inside trenches by combining collimation sputtering with an etch-back process.