Magnetization processes in isotropic and textured Nd2Fe14B-films

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.