Growth of oriented rare-earth-transition-metal thin films

Rare-earth-transition-metal thin films are successfully grown by magnetron sputtering onto single-crystal MgO substrates with epitaxial W buffer layers. The use of epitaxial W buffer layers allows oriented single-phase films to be grown. Sm-Co films grown onto W(100), have strong in-plane anisotropy and coercivities exceeding 5 T at 5 K whereas Fe-Sm films have strong perpendicular anisotropy and are magnetically soft.