Structural and Magnetic Study of Ion Beam Sputtered Iron Thin Film on Polyvinyl Alcohol

Poly vinyl alcohol (PVA) is a versatile polymer which can act as a good host material with good film forming ability and is bio-friendly. In this paper PVA film has been used as matrix for depositing Fe nanoparticles to obtain light weight and flexible polymer-metal nanocomposite film with magnetic properties. PVA was deposited on float glass substrate by solution casting method. Ion Beam Sputtering (IBS) method was used to sputter iron (Fe) nanoparticles onto PVA to obtain Fe deposition with nominal thickness of 30 nm. The nanocomposite film was characterized using Grazing incidence x-ray diffraction (GIXRD) and magneto-optical Kerr effect (MOKE). In the GIXRD pattern, the prominent peak at 19.6 degrees confirms the presence of PVA crystalline peak. The desirable BCC phase responsible for the magnetic property was detected even in the iron/polymer film. The particle size of Fe nanoparticles is found to be about 6.24 nm. MOKE pattern shows well defined hysteresis loop with coercivety of the order of 20.76 Oe indicating soft ferromagnetic property of the nanocomposite film.