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REVIEW OF SCIENTIFIC INSTRUMENTS 76, 063911 !2005"

Broadband complex permeability characterization of magnetic thin films

using shorted microstrip transmission-line perturbation
Yan Liu
Centre for Superconducting & Magnetic Materials, Department of Physics, National University of Singapore,
Singapore 117542

Linfeng Chen
Temasek Laboratories, National University of Singapore, Singapore 119260

C. Y. Tan, H. J. Liu, and C. K. Onga!

Centre for Superconducting & Magnetic Materials, Department of Physics, National University of Singapore,
Singapore 117542

!Received 28 December 2004; accepted 26 April 2005; published online 7 June 2005"
A brief review of the methods used for broadband complex permeability measurement of magnetic
thin films up to microwave frequencies is given. In particular, the working principles of the
transmission-line perturbation methods for the characterization of magnetic thin films are discussed,
with emphasis on short-circuited planar transmission-line perturbation methods. The algorithms for
calculating the complex permeability of magnetic thin films for short-circuited planar
transmission-line perturbation methods are analyzed. A shorted microstrip line is designed and
fabricated as a prototype measurement fixture. The structure of the microstrip fixture and the
corresponding measurement procedure are discussed in detail. A piece of 340 nm thick FeTaN thin
film deposited on Si substrate using sputtering method is characterized using the microstrip fixture.
An improved technique for obtaining permeability by using a saturation magnetization field is
demonstrated here, and the results fit well with the LandauLifchitzGilbert theory. Approaches to
extending this method to other aspects in the investigation of magnetic thin film are also
discussed. 2005 American Institute of Physics. #DOI: 10.1063/1.1935429$

I. INTRODUCTION

Magnetic thin films are widely used in various fields of

high-speed electronics,1,2 such as information storage,3,4
electromagnetic compatibility,5,6 magnetic field sensors,7 and
microwave communication devices.8 Different applications
require magnetic thin film with different properties, and the
complex permeability !!r = !r! j!r"" spectrum of a magnetic
thin film is among the most important factors determining
the suitability of a magnetic thin film for an application and
the performances of the devices made from the magnetic thin
film. For example, the development of planar inductors and
transformers in integrated circuits requires magnetic thin
films to have high values of !r! and low values of !r", and
hence the ferromagnetic resonance frequencies of the magnetic thin films for these purposes should be much higher
than the working frequencies of these devices. In addition,
the magnetic thin films for electromagnetic noise countermeasure in integrated circuits should have suitable values of
!r! and high values of !r", thus the ferromagnetic resonance
frequencies of the magnetic thin films for this purpose are
usually around the working frequencies of the integrated circuits. Therefore it is desirable that the complex permeability
spectra of magnetic thin films could be tailored to meet various application requirements, and the underlying sciences of
a"

Author to whom all correspondence should be addressed; electronic mail:

phyongck@nus.edu.sg

0034-6748/2005/76"6!/063911/8/$22.50

the electromagnetic properties of magnetic thin films have

been extensively investigated.915 For both materials scientists and application engineers, broadband characterization of
magnetic thin films is crucial for their research and development activities.
As the clock speeds of electronic circuits approach microwave frequencies, it becomes necessary to characterize
the electromagnetic properties of magnetic thin films up to
microwave frequencies. Many efforts have been made for
broadband complex permeability characterization of magnetic thin films up to gigahertz frequency range, and the
methods developed generally fall into two categories:
pick-up coil methods and transmission-line perturbation
methods.16 In most of the measurement methods, the permeance of a magnetic thin film is measured. Permeance refers to the average permeability over the cross section of the
thin film times the film thickness and the complex permeability of the magnetic thin film under test can be obtained from
its permeance value when the film thickness is known.
The fixture used in the pick-up coil method mainly consists of a driving coil and a pick-up coil, and the working
principle of this method is similar to that of a transformer.
The thin film under study is placed in the pick-up coil, and
the permeability of the thin film is calculated from the
change of the coupling between the driving coil and the
pick-up coil due to the magnetic properties of the thin film
sample. Since Calcagno and Thompson developed a permeance meter for measuring the magnetic films with uniaxial

76, 063911-1

2005 American Institute of Physics

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063911-2

Rev. Sci. Instrum. 76, 063911 "2005!

Liu et al.

anisotropy up to 100 MHz in 1975,17 many modifications

have been made to extend the measurement frequency
ranges.1826 Using the fixture developed by Yamaguchi
et al.,2226 the pick-up coil method can measure the complex
permeability of magnetic thin films up to 6 GHz.1
The upper frequency limit of a pick-up coil method is
mainly determined by the driving coil and the pick-up coil in
the measurement fixture used in this method. The pick-up
coils used in various measurement fixtures generally fall into
three categories: figure-8 pickup coil, microstrip loop coil,
and shielded loop coil. The figure-8 pickup coil proposed by
Calcagno and Thompson17 has been modified by many
researchers.1823 Grimes et al. extended the measurement frequency ranges up to about 500 MHz,20,21 and Yamaguchi
et al. extended the highest measurement frequency to about
1 GHz.22 The other two types of pick-up coils, microstrip
loop coil and shielded loop coil, were proposed and improved mainly by the researchers from the Research Institute
of Electrical Communication, Tohoku University.1,2426 Using these two types of pickup coils, the highest measurement
frequencies can reach a few gigahertz. A microstrip loop coil
has a simple structure and can be easily fabricated, but the
electric field around the coil may affect the output of the coil,
resulting in erroneous results. A shielded loop coil is not
sensitive to the electric field around the coil so results can be
obtained more accurately. However, its structure is more
complicated than that of a microstrip loop coil. The driving
coils often used in permeance meters can be generally classified into three types: Helmholtz type,23 traveling-wave
type1,25 and standing-wave type.24,26 A Helmholtz type driving coil can provide strong and uniform magnetic field, but
the working frequency is usually lower than 100 MHz. The
other two types of driving coils are based on microwave
transmission lines. Usually a traveling-wave type or
standing-wave type driving coil can work up to much higher
frequency than a Helmholtz type driving coil. But in the
design of a traveling-wave type or standing-wave type driving coil, the higher order modes that may appear in the transmission line have to be avoided. By combining various types
of driving coils and pick-up coils, many kinds of pick-up coil
methods can be developed to meet various measurement
requirements.
In a transmission-line perturbation method, the magnetic
thin film under measurement is inserted into a segment of a
transmission line, so the characteristic parameters of the
transmission line are changed. From the changes in the transmission line characteristic parameters, the complex permeability of the thin film can be obtained. In this method, the
propagation mode in the transmission line should not change
with the insertion of the sample.
Two types of transmission lines are often used in
transmission-line perturbation methods for characterizing
magnetic thin films: coaxial line and planar transmission
line. In a coaxial line method, the magnetic thin film is usually fabricated into a composite with torus shape,1,27,28 and
the complex permeability of the magnetic thin film is derived
from the effective permeability of the torus-shape composite.
Generally speaking, coaxial-line methods are only suitable
for magnetic thin films fabricated on flexible substrates, as it

is difficult to fabricate magnetic thin film on a torus shape

rigid substrate. There are several approaches for the measurement of magnetic thin films using a coaxial transmission
line. Usually the magnetic thin film under test is wound
many times in a spiral format to form a torus shape,1,27,28 and
in this approach, usually the coaxial line works in a transmission mode. The magnetic thin film under study can also
be conformed on the inner conductor of the coaxial line or
placed on the outer surface of a dielectric torus, and in these
approaches, the coaxial line usually works in a reflection
mode.29
Both the advantages and disadvantages of the coaxialline method are obvious. The coaxial line method can cover
a wide frequency range. For a 7-mm coaxial line, it can
cover a frequency range up to 18 GHz. However, this
method is not suitable for thin films fabricated on rigid dielectric substrates, which are often used in high-speed electronics. This method is also not suitable for magnetic thin
films which are sensitive to mechanical stresses even if flexible substrate is used.
Planar transmission lines are another scheme for characterizing magnetic thin films using the transmission-line perturbation method. Magnetic thin films coated on rigid substrates can be characterized using planar transmission-line
perturbation methods. Even for magnetic thin films on flexible substrates, planar transmission-line perturbation methods have obvious advantages. Using a planar transmissionline method, usually samples can be characterized as they are
fabricated, with no additional preparation. Furthermore a planar transmission-line method does not require a large sample
size. The principle for the characterization of magnetic thin
films using planar transmission lines are discussed in Sec. II.
II. PLANAR TRANSMISSION LINES FOR
CHARACTERIZATION OF MAGNETIC THIN FILMS

Planar transmission lines have been widely used in characterizing the electromagnetic properties of materials.30 In a
planar transmission-line perturbation method, the magnetic
thin film under test is inserted into a segment of planar transmission line. As the boundary conditions of the transmission
line are changed due to the insertion of the magnetic thin
film, the characteristic parameters of the transmission line
are subsequently changed. From the changes of the characteristic parameters, the electromagnetic properties of the
magnetic thin film can be deduced. The characteristic parameters often used in deriving materials properties mainly include characteristic impedance Z, propagation constant ", effective permittivity #eff, and permeability !eff. These
parameters are related by the following equations:
Z = Z0

"=j

!eff
,
#eff

$%
!eff#eff ,
c0

!1"
!2"

where Z0 is the impedance of free space, c0 is the speed of

light in free space, and $ is the angular frequency. It should
be noted that Eqs. !1" and !2" are valid for TEM or quasi-

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063911-3

Permeability of magnetic thin films

Rev. Sci. Instrum. 76, 063911 "2005!

FIG. 2. Electric field !solid line" and magnetic field !dashed line" distribution at the cross section of the region with the magnetic thin film sample.

FIG. 1. Microstrip circuits for characterization of magnetic thin films. !a"

Transmission approach and !b" reflection approach.

TEM modes only, so although the transmission line of any

type can be used, the transmission line has to be operating in
a monomodal TEM or quasi-TEM regime. In a planar
transmission-line perturbation method, the choice of characteristic parameters is mainly based on the convenience of
analysis.
Figure 1 shows two approaches of using planar transmission lines for the characterization of magnetic thin films: the
transmission and reflection approaches. Although the transmission lines in Fig. 1 are microstrip lines, the two approaches shown in Fig. 1 are applicable to any type of planar
transmission lines. In the transmission approach shown in
Fig. 1!a", the thin film under test is placed in a segment of
transmission line. Due to the perturbation by the thin film,
the characteristic parameters of the region filled with the thin
film, shown in Fig. 2, are different from those of the empty
region without the thin film, shown in Fig. 2!a". The discontinuities along the transmission line affect both the reflection
coefficient !S11" and the transmission coefficient !S21". If
both S11 and S21 are measured, the permittivity and permeability of the thin film can be obtained.3133 It should be
noted that in materials research and engineering applications,
thin films are usually coated on dielectric substrates. This
makes the situations in actual experiments more complicated, and in the calculations of materials properties, numerical calculations are often needed.
In the reflection approach shown in Fig. 1!b", the transmission line is short circuited, and the magnetic thin film is
placed at a position close to the shorted end of the transmission line where magnetic field dominates. Due to the presence of the magnetic thin film, the characteristic parameters

of the portion filled with the thin film are different from
those of the empty portion. The discontinuities of the characteristic parameters along the transmission line affect the
reflection coefficient !S11" of this one-port network, and the
magnetic permeability of the thin film can be obtained from
reflection measurements.3440
Several models have been proposed to analyze the reflection approach: equivalent LCR circuit,35,36 transmission
line,36 and effective parameter.38 The equivalent LCR circuit
model and the transmission-line model analyze the change of
the characteristic impedance !%Z" due to the insertion of the
magnetic thin film, and the complex permeability of the
magnetic thin film are derived from %Z. The effective parameter model analyzes the change of the effective permeability !%!eff" of the transmission line due to the magnetic
properties of the magnetic thin film under test, and the complex permeability of the thin film under study is obtained
from %!eff. In experiments, either %Z or %!eff can be obtained from reflection measurements.
The above three models do not require complicated data
processing, and the results obtained from these models generally agree with each other.16,35 In the equivalent LCR circuit model and the transmission line model, the equivalent
lumped elements of the transmission line are determined
from the best fit of the measurement results over the whole
measurement frequency range; while in the effective parameter approach, the effective parameters at different frequencies describing the transmission line are determined from the
reflection measurements at different measurement
frequencies.38
In this article, we demonstrated and improved on the
effective parameter model proposed by Bekker et al.38 In
Bekkers model, the complex permeability of a magnetic thin
film is derived from the change in the effective permeability
!eff of a transmission line segment with the magnetic thin
film insertion. Before the thin film is inserted, the effective
permeability of the transmission line equals unity !!eff = 1".
After the thin film is inserted, both the effective permittivity
and effective permeability of the transmission line are
changed. At the region where the thin film is inserted, as the
electric field is perpendicular to the thin film as shown in
Fig. 2, and the thickness of the thin film is very small, the
change of the effective permittivity of the transmission line
due to the insertion of the thin film is assumed to be negligible. Therefore by using the effective permittivity calculated
from reflection measurement of the transmission line without
the thin film as the effective permittivity of the transmission

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063911-4

Rev. Sci. Instrum. 76, 063911 "2005!

Liu et al.

line loaded with the thin film, the effective permeability of

the transmission line loaded with the thin film can be calculated from the reflection measurement. From the value of the
effective permeability of the transmission line loaded with
the thin film, the permeability of the thin film can be derived.
In the configuration shown in Fig. 1!b", the shorted
transmission line consists of two portions: the empty portion
without thin film and the sample portion which is loaded
with the sample under study. The effective permittivity of the
transmission line before a thin film is inserted can be obtained from the reflection coefficient measured at starting
point of the transmission line
empty
!f" =
#eff

&

empty
jc0ln# S11
! f "$
4& f !lempty + lsample"

'

!3"

empty
!f" is the reflection coefficient before the thin
where S11
film is inserted, lempty is the length of the empty portion,
lsample is the length of the sample portion, and f is the measurement frequency. After the thin film is inserted, by assuming that the effective permittivity of the transmission line
does not change, the effective permeability of the perturbed
transmission line is given by

!eff!f" =

&

film
jc0ln# S11
! f "$

empty
4& flsample%#eff
!f"

lempty
lsample

'

!4"

film
!f" is the reflection coefficient after the thin film is
where S11
inserted.
As the change of the effective permeability of the transmission line from unity to the value given by Eq. !4" is due
to the magnetic properties of the thin film, the complex permeability of the thin film can be obtained from the change of
effective permeability of the transmission line

!film! f " =

K
#!eff! f " 1$ ,
t

!5"

where t is the thickness of the thin film under test, and K is

the scaling coefficient of the shorted transmission line, which
is determined by the structure of the shorted transmission
line and is independent of the thin film under test. The scaling coefficient K can be obtained by calibrating the shorted
transmission line with a standard sample whose permeability
is known, or by adjusting the real part of the complex permeability at low frequency to fit the value of initial permeability determined by

! =
!initial

Ms
+ 1,
Ha

!6"

where M s is the saturation magnetization and Ha is the anisotropic field of the magnetic thin film under test. Once the
scaling coefficient K is determined, it can be used for other
samples.
As thin films are usually fabricated on dielectric substrates, the situations are more complicated than what is discussed above. In order to calculate the effective permeability
of the transmission line loaded with a magnetic thin film
coated on a dielectric substrate from the reflection coefficient, the effective permittivity of this loaded transmission
line should be known. In this loaded transmission line, both

FIG. 3. Cross section of the microstrip circuit !a" loaded with substrate
without thin film and !b" loaded with substrate coated with thin film.

the magnetic thin film itself and the dielectric substrate contribute to the effective permittivity of the transmission line.
As the effects of the thin film to the effective permittivity of
the transmission line are usually quite small, we only consider the effect of the dielectric substrate to the effective
permittivity of the transmission line. In the calculation of the
complex permeability of magnetic thin film, we actually
compare the two cases shown in Fig. 3. In Fig. 3!a", the
transmission line is loaded with a dielectric substrate without
magnetic thin film, and in Fig. 3!b", the transmission line is
loaded with a magnetic thin film coated on a dielectric substrate. We assume that the two substrates in the two cases
have the same dimensions, the same dielectric properties, are
nonmagnetic and they are placed at the same position in the
transmission line.
To calculate the effective permeability of the transmission line in Fig. 3!b" from reflection measurement, the effective permittivity of the transmission line should be known.
As the effective permeability of the transmission line shown
in Fig. 3!a" is unity, its effective permittivity can be obtained
from reflection measurement:
sub
!f" =
#eff

&

empty
sub
jc0ln! S11
!f"
! f "" lempty%#eff

4& flsample
lsample

'

!7"

If the effect of the dielectric permittivity of the magnetic

thin film is neglected, the two cases shown in Fig. 3 have the
same effective permittivity. So the effective permittivity
given by Eq. !7" can be taken as the effective permittivity of
the transmission line shown in Fig. 3!b". Based on this assumption, the effective permeability of the transmission line
shown in Fig. 3!b" can be obtained from reflection measurement made at the starting point of the transmission line38

!eff!f" =

&

film
jc0ln! S11
!f""

sub
4& flsample%#eff
!f"

empty
lempty%#eff
!f"
sub
lsample%#eff
!f"

'

!8"

film
!f" is the reflection coefficient of the transmission
where S11
line loaded with a magnetic thin film coated on a dielectric

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063911-5

Permeability of magnetic thin films

FIG. 4. Shorted microstrp line fixture loaded with a magnetic thin film
coated on a dielectric substrate. !a" Photograph and !b" schematic diagram.

substrate. After the effective permeability of the transmission

line loaded with the thin film coated on the substrate is obtained, the complex permeability of the thin film can be calculated following Eqs. !5" and !6".
III. MICROSTRIP FIXTURE

The algorithms discussed above are applicable to any

types of short-circuited planar transmission lines. As microstrip lines are widely used in microwave electronics, and can
be easily fabricated, we have designed and fabricated a measurement fixture based on microstrip line structure. As shown
in Fig. 4, the fixture we developed has one end shorted to the
ground and the other end soldered to the pin launcher of a
subminiature assembly !SMA" coaxial connector.
In the fixture design, the characteristic impedance of the
microstrip line is chosen to be 50 ' to match the test port of
network analyzer. To provide space for thin film samples, the
space between the upper line and the ground plate is left
empty, so the substrate of the microstrip structure is air. The
characteristic impedance of such a microstrip structure is
mainly determined by the width w of the upper line, and the
height h between the upper line and ground plate. To in-

Rev. Sci. Instrum. 76, 063911 "2005!

crease the measurement sensitivity, the magnetic thin film

should be at the center between the upper line and the ground
plate, as shown in Fig. 3!b". As the thickness of the substrates we used in the fabrication of magnetic thin films is
0.5 mm, the height h is chosen to be 1.05 mm, and subsequently the width of the upper line w is chosen to be
5.16 mm.
As there are unavoidable discontinuities at the transition
between microstrip line and SMA coaxial connector, to avoid
possible resonance in the measurement fixture, the length of
the microstrip line should be less than a quarter wavelength
of the highest measurement frequency. Our highest measurement frequency is set to be 4.5 GHz, and correspondingly the
length of the microstrip line in our fixture is 9 mm. The
ground plate of our fixture is made of brass, and the upper
line is made from a piece of TMM10i laminate !Rogers Corporation, Connecticut, USA". The TMM10i laminate has a
thickness of 0.635 mm, a dielectric constant of 9.8, and a
loss tangent of 0.002 at 10 GHz, and is plated with a layer of
copper 37 !m thick. In the microstrip structure, the copper
layer on the TMM10i faces the ground plate.
The magnetic field distributions of the measurement fixture under different conditions are analyzed using the commercial full wave electromagnetic simulator Ansoft HFSS.
Figure 5 shows the magnetic field distributions of the measurement fixture under different conditions at 4 GHz. In the
simulations, the substrate has a dielectric constant 11.9 and
loss tangent is zero. All the substrates have a length of 10
mm, a width of 5 mm, and a thickness of 0.5 mm. The
magnetic thin film is set as 500 nm thick, with relative permeability of 100 and the magnetic loss tangent of 0.5. Figure
5 shows that magnetic field distributions do not change
greatly along the microstrip line in the fixture, so the samples
can be placed at any position along the fixture though the
most sensitive position is close to the shorted end of the
microstrip line. Figure 5 also indicates that propagation
mode of the fixture does not change much due to the insertion of the samples, so the perturbation method can be used.
Figure 5!c" shows the magnetic field distribution of the fixture loaded with magnetic thin film with zero conductivity
and Fig. 5!d" shows the magnetic field distribution of the
fixture loaded with magnetic thin film with conductivity
1000 S / m. These two figures indicate that the conductivity
of the thin film under test does not seriously affect the field
distributions in the transmission line. This is reasonable as in
this configuration the electric field is perpendicular to the
thin film, and so this fixture can be used to measure thin
films with a wide range of conductivity values.
IV. CHARACTERIZATION OF MAGNETIC THIN FILMS

As an application example, a piece of FeTaN thin film

has been fabricated and characterized using the fixture we
developed. The FeTaN thin film was fabricated using rf sputtering method on Si !100" substrate. A 3 in. target with Ta
chips covering 2% of the Fe target surface area was used. An
alignment magnetic field of about 120 Oe was applied parallel to the substrate surface. The following parameters were
used for the film deposition: a base vacuum of 6.0

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063911-6

Rev. Sci. Instrum. 76, 063911 "2005!

Liu et al.

FIG. 6. Magnetization curves of the FeTaN thin film.

FIG. 5. Magnetic field distributions of the fixture at 4 GHz. !a" Empty

fixture. !b" Fixture loaded with a dielectric substrate without magnetic thin
film. !c" Fixture loaded with a dielectric substrate coated with magnetic thin
film with zero conductivity. !d" Fixture loaded with a dielectric substrate
coated with magnetic thin film with conductivity + = 1000 S / m.

( 107 Torr; N2 !3.0 %" and an Ar mixture at pressure of

2.0 mTorr was used as ambient gases; a dc bias voltage of
240 V; and the RF power of 100 W. The sputtering time was
90 min, and the thickness of the film was found to be 340 nm
according to the SEM images of the sample cross section.
From the magnetization curves in Fig. 6, we find that the
saturation magnetization of the thin film is 23.6 memu and
the anisotropy field is 36.0 Oe.
Using a shorted transmission-line fixture, the complex
permeability spectra of magnetic thin films can be characterized in the following procedure. !i" One-port calibration of
the network analyzer with the necessary cable was performed
with open, short, and load standards. !ii" The reference plane
of the vector network analyzer was shifted, using the value
determined by shorting the beginning of the planar transmission line. This step is necessary as after calibration, the reference plane for reflection measurements is at the rf connector of fixture. Whereas in the algorithm discussed in Sec. II,
the reference plane is assumed to be at the starting point of
the planar transmission line. !iii" Measurement of the reflecempty
!f" of the empty fixture was performed
tion coefficient S11
empty
!f" based on Eq.
to calculate the effective permittivity #eff
sub
!f" of
!3". !iv" Measurement of the reflection coefficient S11
the fixture loaded with dielectric substrate without thin film
sub
!f"
was performed to calculate its effective permittivity #eff
based on Eq. !7". !v" Measurement of the reflection coeffifilm
!f" of the film loaded fixture was performed to
cient S11
calculate its effective permeability !eff!f" based on Eq. !8".
!vi" Calculation of complex permeability of the magnetic
thin film using Eqs. !5" and !6".

Figure 7 shows the effective parameters of the microstrip

line of the fixture at different situations. The effective permittivity of the empty fixture and the fixture load with dielectric substrate without thin film are frequency dependent.
In the effective parameter model, the complex permeability
values at different frequencies are calculated based on measurement results at corresponding frequency points, so the
permeability spectrum obtained in this model provide more
details than the equivalent LCR circuit model and transmission line model, in which lumped parameters are determined
based on the overall results over the whole measurement
frequency range. Based on the effective parameters shown in
Fig. 7 and the static magnetic properties obtained from Fig.
6, the permeability spectrum of the FeTaN thin film can be
obtained, as shown in Fig. 8.
The complex permeability spectrum of a magnetic thin
film can be analyzed based on the LandauLifchitzGilbert
theory

!r!f" = 1 +

)0

&' & '

f
1
fr

2*f
+j
fr

!9"

FIG. 7. Effective parameters of the microstrip line of the fixture at different

states. !a" Effective permittivity of the empty fixture. !b" Effective permittivity of the fixture loaded with substrate without film. !c" Effective permeability of the fixture loaded with film coated on substrate.

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063911-7

Rev. Sci. Instrum. 76, 063911 "2005!

Permeability of magnetic thin films

magnetization method with the planar transmission line

film
method. The effective permittivity #eff
!f" of the loaded
transmission line is first measured, taking account of the
electric properties of the magnetic thin film under test
film
!f" =
#eff

&

empty
saturate
!f"
jc0ln! S11
!f"" lempty%#eff

4& flsample
lsample

'

, !11"

saturate
!f" is the reflection coefficient of the transmiswhere S11
sion line loaded with the thin film sample which is magnetically saturated. With a known value of effective permittivity
film
!f", the effective permeability !eff!f" of the transmission
#eff
line loaded with thin film sample can be calculated by

!eff!f" =
FIG. 8. Permeability spectrum of the magnetic thin film. !a" Theoretical
results following LandauLifchitzGilbert equations. !b" Measurement results based on calibration with substrate without thin film. !c" Measurement
results based on calibration with saturation magnetization.

fr =

" %
!0 Ha M s ,
2&

!10"

where )0 is the static susceptibility of the material, * is the

damping coefficient, f is the operation frequency, f r is the
resonance frequency, and " is the gyromagnetic ratio. In our
calculations, we choose * = 0.2, " = 1.78( 1011 !Ts"1 and
)0 = 485 corresponding to our FeTaN thin film. The results
following Eqs. !9" and !10" are shown in Fig. 8.
It should be noted, in a perturbation method for materials
property characterization, that it is desirable to compare two
cases that have a difference only in the parameter to be measured while all the other parameters are the same. In the
algorithm discussed above, we compare the two cases loaded
with substrates with and without thin film, respectively, ignoring the electric properties of the thin film. Actually the
electric properties of the thin film under test affect the effective permittivity of the transmission line loaded with the thin
film coated on dielectric substrate. The electric properties of
the magnetic thin film under test can lead to a large error in
cases where the permittivity, conductivity, or thickness of the
sub
!f" in Eq.
sample thin film is large. Ideally, the parameter #eff
!8" should be replaced by the effective permittivity of the
transmission line loaded with a substrate coated with a special dielectric thin film. This special dielectric thin film
should have the same dimensions and the same complex permittivity with those of the thin film to be tested but it is
nonmagnetic. In practice it is very difficult to fabricate such
a thin film for each piece of sample.
In experiments, such a special dielectric thin film can be
simulated by a saturation magnetization method, which was
demonstrated for traveling wave coil type permeance
meter.25 By magnetizing the magnetic thin film beyond the
saturation level, the magnetization of the thin film does not
increase with the further increase of the external magnetic
field. In this case, the microwave magnetic field in the fixture
does not affect the magnetization of the thin film, so the
magnetic permeability of the thin film equals unity, while its
dielectric permittivity does not change. In this article, we
derived the calculations and demonstrated the saturation

&

film
jc0ln! S11
!f""

film
4& flsample%#eff
!f"

empty
!f"
lempty%#eff
film
lsample%#eff
!f"

'

, !12"

film
where S11
!f" is the reflection coefficient of the transmission
line loaded with the thin film sample without external magnetic field. With the value of !eff!f" given by Eq. !12", the
complex permeability of the magnetic thin film can be determined following Eqs. !5" and !6". The saturation magnetization approach actually compares the effective permeability
values of the sample-loaded transmission line with and without the externally applied saturation magnetic field. Figure 8
indicates that the results following the saturation magnetization approach have better agreement with the Landau
LifchitzGilbert theory. In experiments, the strength of the
saturation magnetic field we applied is 120 Oe.
In principle, the thin film sample under test can be at any
position along the microstrip line,38 but in the measurement
procedure, the positions of the substrate without magnetic
thin film and the substrate with magnetic thin film should be
at the same position. Mainly based on the following two
reasons, it is desirable to place both the substrate and the thin
film sample at the shorted end of the fixture: first, in this way
the repeatability of the positions of the substrate and the thin
film sample can be ensured so the measurement results have
higher repeatability; and second, the measurements have
higher sensitivities as the magnetic field is the strongest at
the shorted end, as shown in Fig. 5. By measuring the FeTaN
sample ten times, we found that measurement uncertainty of
our experiments is within 10%.

V. DISCUSSIONS

The shorted transmission-line perturbation method discussed in this paper can be further extended to provide more
dimensions for the study of the permeability spectra of magnetic thin films. By adding a heating/cooling system to the
fixture, the temperature dependence of complex permeability
of magnetic thin film can be studied.37 By changing the
strength and orientation of the static magnetic field applied to
the magnetic thin film under study, the magnetic field dependence of the complex permeability of the magnetic thin film
can be studied.35 The magnetostriction of a magnetic thin
film can also be studied by applying mechanic stresses to the
film under test.40
Finally it should be noted that microstrip-line structure
used in this article is only an example to implement the
shorted transmission-line perturbation method. Other types

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063911-8

of planar transmission line structures, such as stripline,36 coplanar line,39 and slotline,40 can also be used to meet various
measurement requirements.
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