抄録
We investigated the effects of ZnO underlayers on the crystal orientation of L10 FePt polycrystalline films and found that thin ZnO underlayers with good c-axis orientation promote preferential growth of FePt (001) in spite of their different crystal lattice symmetry, resulting in excellent perpendicular magnetic properties. This unexpected result was qualitatively explained by the proposed model for lattice matching between ZnO (00·l) and FePt (001). Annealing at temperatures above 550°C, however, gives rise to chemical reactions at the FePt/ZnO and ZnO/substrate (in this case Si) interfaces, causing severe reduction of the magnetic moment of FePt and/or changes in the film morphology. Therefore, heating processes above 550°C should be avoided when we use ZnO as the underlayer material for promotion of FePt (001) orientation.
