Design and application of gradient annealing devices for the parallel thermal processing of Fe/Pt multilayers

摘要

This paper discusses the design and use of gradient annealing devices. Generally, it is intended to use such devices for the rapid optimization of thin film materials by simultaneous thermal processing at different temperatures. Furthermore, these devices are efficient for short-time annealing experiments. They are used in order to quickly vary the annealing parameters (temperature, time) from sample to sample. Here, nanoscale Fe/Pt multilayer precursor thin films for the fabrication of hard magnetic Fe-Pt thin films are investigated as a test system. First results prove the usefulness of the gradient annealing devices for high-throughput experiments.