Exafs Study of the Stability of Amorphous TbFe Thin Films

EXAFS is used to measure the local atomic structure of Fe in Au doped Tb-Fe thin film alloys. The as deposited sample shows structural fcatures which are essentially identical to those of the undoped films. Au additions stabilizes the amorphous structure against recrystallization, however, the loss of magnetic anisotropy under thermal annealing is not reduced. This demonstrates that magnetic relaxation in these alloys does not involve crystallization of the amorphous structure.