Residual stress tuned magnetic properties of thick CoMnP/Cu multilayers

Electrodeposited hard magnetic thick films have vast applications in the microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). Yet the very large residual stresses (σr) built-up in monolayered thick magnetic films leads to cracks, dimensional changes and deteriorated magnetic properties. Here, we explored quantitatively magnetic properties of CoMnP/Cu multilayers tuned by σr, which in turn are varied by the inserted soft Cu interlayer and thickness of single CoMnP magnetic layers. The configuration of the multilayers is an alternating CoMnP/Cu on Cu-substrate. The thickness of Cu interlayer was 1.4 μm. We kept a sum of all magnetic layers in the multilayers at ∼20 μm to benchmark with a 19.4 μm monolayered CoMnP. The magnetic layers are 94 wt.% Co and possess highly textured (002) hexagonal close packed microstructures. We characterized the apparent crystallite stresses through sin2ψ method by X-ray diffractometer (XRD) and residual film stress by curvature method. The insertion of Cu interlayers effectively reduces σr by 23% through stacking with six single-layered CoMnP. The out-of-plane (OP) anisotropy is slightly reduced. While the maximum energy product in the in-plane (IP) direction can be significantly enhanced by 430% ∼ 690% with increasing the number of the CoMnP single layer in the multilayers. The magneto-elastic behaviors well explain the evolution of the total anisotropy energy of the mono- and multi-layers. By CoMnP/Cu configurations we successfully worked out a strategy to preserve prestigious OP performance while to enhance IP properties by 4 to 6 times to meet ever increasing challenges in MEMS applications.