Microstructure of CoCr thin films prepared by sputtering

The microstructure and the growth process of sputter deposited CoCr thin films are studied by transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The columnar structure of c-axis oriented CoCr grains is well established at a greater film thickness of about 100 nm. The cross-sectional TEM clearly shows the detailed structure of the initial growth layer, where the c-axis oriented grains are growing in size with increasing distance from the substrate surface. The necessity of controlling the nucleation of CoCr crystal grains at an early stage of film growth is stressed to further improve the c-axis orientation of the film.