Coercive and anisotropy fields in patterned amorphous FeSi submicrometric structures

Amorphous FexSi1-x films have been prepared on Si substrates in order to fa bricate submicrometric magnetic structures with soft magnetic behavior. The magnetic properties compositional dependence of the unpatterned samples ha s been analyzed to select the Fe content (x = 0.7) with the lowest coercive and anisotropy fields values. Arrays of Fe0.7Si0.3 lines have been fabrica ted by electron beam lithography combined with a liftoff technique, with ty pical dimensions of 200 nm linewidth and 1 mu m line spacing. These arrays present coercive fields parallel to the line direction as small as 9 Oe. (C ) 2000 American Institute of Physics. [S0021-8979(00)38808-9].