Ultra High Vacuum Sputtering System

This grant provided for the purchase of an ultrahigh vacuum sputtering system for the preparation of high quality multilayered magnetic films and thin films. The system allows the preparation of continuous alloys with the use of three magnetron clusters and epitaxial multilayer films using ion beam sputtering. Initial tests of the quality of the films indicate that the films prepared in this system are comparable to those prepared by other workers using similar and different techniques in this area of research. The structural quality of the samples prepared with the system has been measured with low angle x-ray scattering whereas the magnetic properties have been characterized with electrical transport, magnetization, and magneto-optic measurements.