Eur. Phys. J. Appl. Phys. (2012) 58: 10301
https://doi.org/10.1051/epjap/2012110391

Influence of annealing on the structural properties of evaporated Co_xCr_1−x/Si(1 0 0) and Co_xCr_1−x/glass thin films

¹ Laboratoire d’Etudes des Surfaces et Interfaces des Matériaux Solides (LESIMS), Department of Physics, Ferhat Abbas University of Setif, Setif 19000, Algeria
² IPCMS-GEMME, UMR-CNRS, Université Louis Pasteur, 23 rue du Loess, B.P. 43, 67034 Strasbourg Cedex 2, France

^a e-mail: kharmouche_ahmed@yahoo.fr

Received: 5 October 2011
Revised: 24 February 2012
Accepted: 5 March 2012
Published online: 29 March 2012

Abstract

Series of Co_xCr_1−x thin films have been evaporated under vacuum onto Si(1 0 0) and glass substrates, x ranging from 0.80 to 0.88; these chemical composition values are provided by modeling Rutherford Backscattering (RBS) spectra using SIMNRA program. Thickness ranges from 17 to 220 nm. Microscopic characterizations of the films have been performed with X-ray diffraction (XRD) measurements. The samples have been annealed for 1 h at 700 °C. All the as deposited samples are polycrystalline, with an hcp structure and show a 〈0 0 0 1〉 preferred orientation. The annealed samples, on the contrary, present hcp and fcc phases. The as deposited films are under a compressive stress while the annealed films are under a tensile stress. Grain sizes increase with chromium content decrease and are higher for the annealed films. Excellent orientations of the CoCr crystallites around the normal to the film plane have been observed, the full width at half maximum (FWHM) ranging from 0.49° to 0.79°.