Textured and isotropic Nd2Fe14B-films have been produced using ion beam spu
ttering and hysteresis loops have been measured in the temperature range be
tween 100 and 600 K. Both, textured and isotropic films exhibit hard magnet
ic properties over the whole ferromagnetic temperature range with room temp
erature coercivities up to mu H-0(C) = 1.56T for the isotropic samples and
0.67T for the textured samples. From the temperature dependence of the crit
ical field and coercivity of the samples, conclusions can be drawn with res
pect to the magnetization process of the films. For the isotropic samples i
t is shown that there are two temperature ranges which exhibit a nucleation
type and a domain wall pinning type process, while in the textured films,
the magnetization process exclusively corresponds to a domain wall pinning
process. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.