Pulse Plated Amorphous Fe-P Thin Layers for High Frequency Magnetic Applications

Amorphous and partly nanocrystalline amorphous iron-phosphorus (Fe-P) layers have been deposited by pulse electrochemical technique. X-ray Diffraction (XRD) and Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) have been used to characterize the structure in the layers. Depending on the pulse parameters, the structure of Fe-P layers changed from mostly amorphous to partly nanocrystalline amorphous. The magnetic coercivity and the frequency limit of the samples are discussed in terms of the structure of the Fe-P layers. The frequency limit as determined from the permeability spectra is above 10 MHz, which makes these layers suitable for high frequency inductive element applications.