Patterned FeNi soft magnetic strips film with tunable resonance frequency from 1 to 10.6 GHz

Soft magnetic films with a wide-range tunable ferromagnetic resonance frequency are suitable for miniaturization and multifunctionalization of microwave integrated circuits. Fabrication of these films for high-frequency applications is usually complicated and difficult. We demonstrate a simple method to fabricate patterned FeNi soft magnetic strip films by magnetron sputtering and photolithography. Films prepared by this method exhibits a tunable in-plane uniaxial magnetic anisotropy (IPUMA) for different strip widths and gaps. As the strip widths changing from 500 to 2 μm, the IPUMA field increases monotonically from 2.2 to 576 Oe and resonance frequency from 1 to 10.6 GHz(which covers four microwave bands, including the L,S,C and X bands) respectively. This ultra-wide-range adjustability of resonance frequency can be attributed to shape anisotropy of strips. Considering that FeNi alloy has relatively low magnetocrystalline anisotropy, so a wider adjustable range of resonance frequency could be obtained using materials with stronger magnetocrystalline anisotropy.