Enhancement in (002) texture of electroplated Co-based hard magnet layers

Electroplated hard magnet layers with out-of-plane performance play important roles in electro-mechanical devices. We designed to improve magnetic performance of electroplated Co-based hard magnet layer via the enhancement of HCP(002) texture using a thin seed-layer whose HCP(002) texture is intrinsically high. The seed-layer is either CoP or CoNiMnP fixed at 1μm thickness. Top hard magnet layers CoNiP and CoP with varied thickness were electroplated on top of the seed-layer. The results indicate that the improvement in out-of-plane magnetic properties of top layer is 38% to 100% in Br, 13% to 100% in Hc and 57% to 300% in (BH)max due to introduction of the seed-layer. The evolution in texture coefficient of HCP(002) of the top layer was quantitatively studied. The resultant magnetic properties correlate well with the induced texture coefficient.