Magnetic and magnetoelastic properties of thin films by pulsed laser deposition

Pulsed laser deposition (PLD) has been used to fabricate thin films (Fe, Fe/sub 0.9/Zr/sub 0.1/, TbFe/sub 2/, DyFe/sub 2/ and Tb/sub 0.3/Dy/sub 0.7/Fe/sub 1.95/) from a variety of magnetic materials that have potential for sensor and microactuator applications. The magnetic and magnetoelastic responses of these films have been studied to assess the influence of growth parameters such as incident laser fluence (Jcm/sup -2/) on such behaviour. Magnetic characterisation and magnetostriction measurements were made by VSM and capacitance dilatometry respectively. In all the magnetic systems studied, no obvious trend was shown between fluence and magnetisation or coercivity. Room temperature in-plane magnetostrictions of /spl sim/800 ppm have been measured from thin films (/spl sim/200 nm) of the Terfenol-D composition (Tb/sub 0.3/Dy/sub 0.7/Fe/sub 1.95/) Laser post production processing has been evaluated on the Fe-Zr alloy system and the results point to the ability to tailor the magnetic response of a film for a specific application.