Effect of Ir content and sputtering conditions on unidirectional anisotropy of Ni-Fe/Mn-Ir films fabricated under the extremely clean sputtering process

An effect of the Ir content and sputtering conditions of Mn-Ir films on the strength of exchange anisotropy was investigated in Ni-Fe/Mn-Ir layers fabricated under the extremely clean sputtering process. We found that the unidirectional anisotropy constant J/sub k/ monotonously increased with increasing the Ir content and decreasing the deposition rate of Mn-Ir films. The change of J/sub k/ against the deposition rate of Mn-Ir films is possibly caused by the quite slight changes of the microstructure of Mn-Ir films, which were undetectable with XRD.