consensus has been emerged that the accumulation of inplane
tensile stress during RTA not only enhances the [001] orientation
but also reduces the surface roughness of the L10 FePt films
[11e14]. However, the origin and mechanism of the accumulated inplane
tensile stress is still not clear yet. In the previous literature, it
was suggested that the densification reactions including rapid
recrystallization and abnormal grain growth in thin film material
were likely to induce huge in-plane tensile stress [6,8,13,15]. Yet the
connection between microstructure and in-plane tensile of the
(001) L10 FePt induced by RTA is still puzzling.
In this paper, the evolution of microstructure, in-plane residual
stress, and crystallographic orientation of the FePt films rapidthermal
annealed at different temperatures were investigated.
We also examined and discuss the reorientation of crystallographic
and magnetic anisotropies during RTA-ordering. The connection of
in-plane tensile stress to microstructural evolution was addressed
for understanding the origin of the induced tensile stress in the
single-layered FePt films during RTA.