Preparation and characterization of Copper/Nikel nanostructurated multilayers using thermionic vacuum Arc method

摘要

Copper and nickel multilayers were prepared in order to obtain nanostructured giant magnetoresistive (GMR) thin films. In this respect we followed the original method of thermionic vacuum arc (TVA), which uses an external source of electrons for the creation of both metal vapors and metal ions. The low arc currents used in this case allow gentle evaporation of the anode material, which results in high smoothness of the films. The deposition thicknesses were controlled to be of 2.5-10 nm for Cu and 4-10 nm for Ni, using a Cressington quartz balance monitor. Morphology and structure of the prepared films were analyzed using electron microscopy techniques (transmission electron and scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy). The thickness of the Cu layer influence on the properties of the prepared film was inferred in correlation with giant magneto-resistive effect.