Effect of Ammonium Chloride in Plating Baths on Soft Magnetic Properties of Electroplated Fe-Ni Films

We electroplated Fe-Ni films in plating baths with ammonium chloride (NH4Cl) and evaluated the magnetic properties of the films. The amount of NH4Cl did not affect the current efficiency of the plating process and the Fe content in the film. The obtained current efficiency of approximately 95% is much higher than our previous study. The coercivity dramatically decreased with increasing NH4Cl from 0 to 15 g/L, and we obtained Fe22Ni78 films with very low coercivity (10 A/m). The Cl- concentration in the plating bath affected the coercivity, and we found that a plating bath with moderate low concentration of Cl- is preferred for obtaining the films with low Fe22Ni78 coercivity.