Preparation and characterization of the ZnO:Al/Fe65Co35/ZnO:Al multifunctional films

The ferromagnetic transparent conducting film is a multifunctional film which has high visible transmittance, low resistivity and room-temperature ferromagnetism, simultaneously. In this article, ferromagnetic transparent conducting ZnO:Al/Fe65Co35/ZnO:Al multilayer films were fabricated by inserting a middle magnetic Fe65Co35 layer into aluminum-doped zinc oxide (ZnO:Al) matrix using a magnetron sputtering apparatus at substrate temperature ranging from room temperature (RT) to 400(a similar to)C. The total film thickness was about 400 nm and the middle Fe65Co35 alloy layer was 4 nm. The influences of substrate temperature (T (s) ) on the structural, electrical, optical and magnetic properties of the multilayer films were systemically investigated. The results showed that the microstructure and performance of the composite multilayer films strongly depended on the substrate temperature. The present results also showed that the inserted middle Fe65Co35 alloy thin layer played an important role in providing the RT ferromagnetism and decreasing the resistivity of the multilayer films. Therefore, it is possible to obtain a multifunctional film material with the combination of good optical transparency, high electrical conductivity and RT ferromagnetism.