Ion-beam-induced magnetic texturing of thin nickel films

The texturing of thin metallic and ceramic films caused by heavy-ion implantation is a common observation, but still lacks quantitative explanations. Magnetic texturing effects of polycrystalline Fe-films irradiated with Xe ions have recently been reported. In this paper, we present results of similar experiments for 18-400 nm thick polycrystalline Ni-films on Si (1 0 0) substrates after irradiating them with 2x1014-1x1016 Xe+-ions/cm2 at 77 K and at ion energies of 6-450 keV, in the presence of a small magnetic field of the order of 1 G. The magnetization was measured by means of the magneto-optical Kerr effect (MOKE), as function of several parameters such as fluence, energy and spot size of the ion beam, thickness and shape of the Ni film and the thermal annealing procedures after irradiation