Controlling the surface morphologies, structural and magnetic properties of electrochemically fabricated Ni-Co thin film samples via seed layer deposition

Abstract

In this study, the influence of the seed layer deposition on the surface morphologies, structural and magnetic features of the thin film samples of Ni-Co was investigated and results are reported. The samples were produced on indium tin oxide (ITO)-coated glass substrates with and without a seed layer by electrochemical deposition technique under a constant deposition potential. To explore the effect of the seed layer current density (SLCD) on thin films, prior to actual deposition, Ni-Co seed layers were introduced on the ITO substrates at varying current densities. The EDX analysis indicated that the samples exhibited identical deposit compositions and an anomalous co-deposition behavior regardless of the SLCD. The Ni-Co samples fabricated under this study had a face centered cubic (fcc) phase structure with preferred crystallographic orientation being in the [111] direction perpendicular to the sample plane. Furthermore, the crystallite size, crystallinity, particle size and surface roughness of the samples showed a strong dependency on applied SLCD. All Ni-Co samples, irrespective of the SLCD, featured stripe magnetic domain structure and in-plane magnetic hysteresis loop with an out-of-plane magnetization component. It was also observed that while a semi-hard magnetic characteristic was detected in all samples, the coercive field varied with the SLCD.