Ni79Fe21 single layers and multilayers composed of Ni79Fe21 layers and paramagnetic Al interlayers were deposited using the facing targets sputtering (FTS) apparatus. During layer deposition, the external field H-ex of 200 Oe along the film plane was applied parallel or transverse to the direction of the plasma confining field H-p of about 30 Oe in the FTS apparatus. The application of H-ex parallel to the H-p direction was not significantly effective for improving soft magnetic characteristics of the films. When H-ex was applied transverse to the H-p direction, the relative permeability mu(r) of the Ni-Fe single layers 100 nm thick was increased, while the coercivity H-c and the squareness ratio M(r)/M(s) of them were not varied. On the other hand, mu(r) of the [Ni-Fe/Al](5) multilayers was extremely and isotropically increased while M(r)/M(s) for the multilayers was decreased down to a half value.
