Effect of Thermal Annealing on Boron Diffusion, Micro-structural, Electrical and Magnetic properties of Laser Ablated CoFeB Thin Films

We report on Boron diffusion and subsequent crystallization of Co$_{40}$Fe$_{40}$B$_{20}$ (CoFeB) thin films on SiO$_2$/Si(001) substrate using pulsed laser deposition. Secondary ion mass spectroscopy reveals Boron diffusion at the interface in both amorphous and crystalline phase of CoFeB. High-resolution transmission electron microscopy reveals a small fraction of nano-crystallites embedded in the amorphous matrix of CoFeB. However, annealing at 400$^\circ$C results in crystallization of CoFe with \textit{bcc} structure along (110) orientation. As-deposited films are non-metallic in nature with the coercivity (H$_c$) of 5Oe while the films annealed at 400$^\circ$C are metallic with a H$_c$ of 135Oe.