Magnetic Properties of FePt:C Nanocomposite Film

Equiatomic FePt and CoPt alloy thin films have received considerable attention as possible magnetic and magneto-optic recording because of their high magnetic anisotropy energy and high coercivity. The high coercivity in these thin films is due to the presence of finely dispersed ordered FePt phase mixed with disordered FePt phase. However, a high temperature treatment, either substrate heating during deposition or post annealing, is needed to obtain the ordered L1$\_$0/ phase with high value of magneto crystalline anisotropy. Recent microstructural studies on these films suggest that the average grain size ranges from 10-50 nm and the grains are magnetically coupled between each other. On the other hand, the ultrahigh-density magnetic recording media with low media noise imposes the need of a material, which consists of magnetically isolated grains with size below 10 nm. The magnetic grain isolation can be controlled by the amount of additional non-magnetic element in the system which determines the interparticle separation and therefore the interparticle interactions. Recently, much research work has been done on various non-magnetic matrices. Preliminary studies showed that the samples prepared in B$_2$O$_3$ and Carbon matrices have shown strong perpendicular anisotropy and fine grain size down to 4nm, which suggest these nanocomposite films are very promising and may lead to the realization of a magnetic medium capable of recording densities beyond 1 Tb/in$^2$. So, in this work, the effect of Carbon doping on the magnetic properties of FePt nanoparticles were investigated.