Induced anisotropy, magnetic domain structure and magnetoimpedance effect in CoFeB amorphous thin films

CoFeB amorphous thin films have been prepared by radio frequency magnetron sputtering. The objective of the work has been to obtain very soft thin films, and to correlate their domain structure with the induced anisotropy and giant magneto-impedance (GMI) features. Tailored anisotropies were induced by either growth under stress, or by postdeposition annealing in the presence of a magnetic field. In certain cases these induced anisotropies give rise to significant GMI effect at a frequency, 5 MHz, relatively low for thin films. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.