Elizabeth Leblanc's project page

The dielectric Properties of Permalloy-Oxide.

Poster Presentation at the 2013-WISE conference.

Texas State University at San Marcos, Department of Physics, RFM 3228, 601 University Drive, San Marcos, TX78666.

Elizabeth Leblanc

It was recently shown that the partial oxidation of a permalloy thin film in magnetic hard disk reading heads can drastically increase the performance of such device and enable the development of larger hard disks [1]. In order to apply Permalloy oxide (PyO) in magnetic reading heads effectively, the electric properties must be known. Therefore we investigated the dielectric properties of PyO.

The samples were made by reactive dual ion beam sputtering using a silicon wafer covered with an aluminum film as a template. We sputtered off a Nickel Iron target and during deposition the substrate, which was kept at room temperature, was exposed to an atomic oxygen beam. Because of this, the PyO we made is expected to be amorphous similar to the PyO in the hard disk reading heads.

We measured the dielectric properties between 5Hz and 13MHz using an HP impedance analyzer. A mercury probe was used to make the contacts to the sample. The real and imaginary parts of the impedance were used to calculate the dielectric constant of the material.

[1] Goran Mihajlovic, et al., Applied Physics Letters, 97, 112502, 2010

Publications and Presentations:

[1] Elizabeth LeBlanc, Maclyn Compton, Wilhelmus Geerts "The dielectric properties of Permalloy-Oxide, poster presentation at the 2013 Wise conference, Texas State University, San Marcos.
[2] Maclyn Compton, Elizabeth LeBlanc, Wilhelmus Geerts, Nelson Simpson, Michael Robinson, "The Electric, Magnetic, and Optical Characteriation of Permalloy Oxide grown by Dual-Ion Beam Sputtering", oral presentation 2014-APS March meeting, Denver.
[3] Maclyn Stuart Compton, Nelson A. Simpson, Elizabeth G. LeBlanc, Michael A. Robinson, Wilhelmus J. Geerts, "Electrical and Optical Properties of Permalloy Oxide grown by dual ion beam sputtering", oral presentation 2014 MRS Spring meeting, San Francisco, California.
[4] Maclyn Stuart Compton, Nelson A. Simpson, Elizabeth G. LeBlanc, Michael A. Robinson, Wilhelmus J. Geerts, "Electrical and Optical Properties of Permalloy Oxide grown by dual ion beam sputtering", 6 page paper published in Mat. Res. Soc. Symp. 1708 (2014) mrss 14-1708-VV08-01.

Elizabeth graduated in Fall-2013 with a Bachelors of Physics from TxState, obtained her Masters in 2016, and her PhD in MSEC in 2020. She is currently employed by