Micro-tensile properties of hard and soft thin films, TiN and Au, were evaluated by directly measuring tensile strain in film tension using the micro-ESPI(electronic Speckle Pattern Interferometry) technique. Micro-tensile stress-strain curves for these films were obtained and the properties were determined. TiN thin film 1 μm thick and Au films with two different thicknesses (t=0.5 μm and 1 μm) were deposited onto the silicon wafers, respectively, and micro-tensile specimens wide 50, 100 and 200 μm were fabricated using micromachining. In-situ measurement of the micro-tensile strain during tensile loading was carried out using the subsequent strain measurement algorithm and the ESPI system developed in this study. The micro-tensile curves showed that TiN thin film was a linear-elastic material showing no plastic deformation and Au thin film was an elastic-plastic material showing significant plastic flow. Effect of the specimen dimensions on mechanical properties was examined. It was revealed that tensile strengths for both films were slightly increased with increasing specimen width. Furthermore, variations of yielding strengths for the thin film Au with change of the dimension were investigated.

A new approach is proposed to obtain fast crystallizing materials based on a conventional GeSbTe alloy for rewritable phase change optical data storage. By means of co-sputtering, Ge1Sb2Te4alloy was mixed with Sn1Bi2Te4alloy so as to form pseudo-binary alloys (Ge1Sb2Te4)1-x(Sn1Bi2Te4)x (x is a mole fraction). From structural and optical analyses of the co- sputtered and annealed alloy films, the formation of stable crystalline single phases was observed along with a Vegard's law behavior, suggesting a homogeneous mixing of the two alloys. By use of a 4 layered disk with (Ge1Sb2Te4)0.85(Sn1Bi2Te4)0.15 recording layer, a preliminary test of writing and erasing was carried out and the results were compared with the case of the disk with Ge1Sb2Te4recording layer. The (Ge1Sb2Te4)0.85(Sn1Bi2Te4)0.15 recording layer was found to yield markedly higher erasibility, especially with increasing disk linear velocity.

We have produced Co1-xPtX (X = 0.53 and 0.75) alloy films using DC magnetron sputtering and investigated their magnetic properties using vibrating sample magnetometry(VSM) and Kerr hysteresis loop tracer. The as-deposited Co-Pt alloy films show a strong in-plane magnetization. By annealing the alloy samples, we have identified that the magnetic properties are drastically changed. While the magnetic properties of the Co0 25Pt0 75 alloy films show no noticeable changes, the coercivity and the squareness of the Co0.47Pt0.53 alloy films are drastically increased after annealing. Transmission electron microscopy(TEM) and x-ray diffractometry(XRD) analysis showed that CoPt(L10) and Co-Pt3 (L12) ordered phases, respectively, are formed in each case with a strong (11) texture. We suggest that the perpendicular magnetic anisotropy in the Co-Pt system does not depend on the mere textureness of the layer but strongly depends on the arrangement of Co and Pt at an atomic scale.