Induced magnetoelastic anisotropy in FeB/CoSiB and FeB/Cu/CoSiB thin films

Magnetic anisotropy was induced in amorphous Fe/sub 80/B/sub 20/ and Co/sub 76/Si/sub 16/B/sub 10/ thin films by growing them on bowed substrates. On releasing the substrates from the substrate holders, a tensile stress was developed within the samples which induced a magnetoelastic anisotropy and modified the domain structure. As a result of it, a magnetic easy axis parallel to the direction of the stress was developed in positive magnetostrictive FeB sample whereas in negative magnetostrictive CoSiB sample the induced easy axis was perpendicular to the direction of developed stress. To produce magnetic multilayers with crossed anisotropy, FeB/CoSiB bilayers and FeB/Cu/CoSiB trilayers were grown on bowed substrates. The magnetic layers in FeB/CoSiB were found to be coupled, which was reduced by depositing a Cu layer between them in FeB/Cu/CoSiB trilayer.