Optical behavior and electrical conductivity of ferromagnetic nanostructured Co:Fe thin films

Abstract

Recently, there has been an increasing interest in optical applications of nanostructured metal thin films based on transparent conductive layers. There is little data published on the study of the optical behavior of ferromagnetic materials such as Co:Fe alloy thin films. DC sputtering technique was used to grow the magnetic crystalline Co:Fe thin films, on glass substrates, in different nano-thicknesses in range of 20, 35, 50, 75 and 100[Formula: see text]nm. XRD technique, atomic force microscopy (AFM), and a spectrophotometer of Ultraviolet–visible (UV–Vis) were used to analyze the films. The XRD data confirmed that the samples of Co:Fe films showed out-of-plane direction of [Formula: see text]. The data indicates that an increase in the average grain size and lattice constant of the films is presented related to increase in the nano-thickness of Co:Fe alloy thin films samples. From AFM, it is illustrated that the roughness of the film is about ([Formula: see text][Formula: see text]nm) which is due to the produced grains. The optical response, optical conductivity and electrical conductivity have been affected by the changed nano-thickness of the metallic Co:Fe thin films.