Micrometer thick soft magnetic films with magnetic moments restricted strictly in plane by negative magnetocrystalline anisotropy

Stripe domains or any other type domain structures with part of their magnetic moments deviating from the film plane, which usually occur above a certain film thickness, are known problems that limit their potential applications for soft magnetic thin films (SMTFs). In this work, we report the growth of micrometer thick c-axis oriented hcp-Co84Ir16 SMTFs with their magnetic moments restricted strictly in plane by negative magnetocrystalline anisotropy. Extensive characterizations have been performed on these films, which show that they exhibit very good soft magnetic properties even for our micrometer thick films. Moreover, the anisotropy properties and high-frequency properties were thoroughly investigated and our results show very promising properties of these SMTFs for future applications.