About 250 nm-thick Ni-doped ZnO:Al films were deposited on glass substrates at 300 K, 473 K and 673 K by direct current magnetron cosputtering. Atomic ratio of Zn:Al:Ni in the film is 100:5:4. All the films have a ZnO wurtzite structure and grow mainly with their crystallographic c-axis perpendicular to the substrate. The films deposited at 300 K and 673 K consist of granular grains whereas the film grown at 473 K mainly has a dense columnar structure. The Ni-doped ZnO:Al film grown at 473 K has the lowest resistivity of 7.7×10−3 Ωcm. All the films have an average optical transmittance of over 90% in the visible wavelength range. The absorption edge of the film grown at 473 K shifts to the shorter wavelength (blueshift) relative to those deposited at 300 K and 673 K. When the substrate temperature reaches 673 K, the Ni-doped ZnO:Al film shows a magnetization curve at room temperature, indicating that the film has a hard magnetization characteristic. The saturation magnetization is about 1×10−4 T and the saturation field is about 3.2×105 A/m.

200nm-thick Ni33Fe67 and Ni21Fe79 films were sputter-deposited on SiO2/Si(100) substrates at room temperature. The films were annealed in vacuum at 573 K, 673 K and 753 K, respectively. The as-deposited Ni33Fe67 film has a fcc-bcc mixed phase and the fcc phase increases with increasing annealing temperature. When the temperature reaches 753 K, the Ni33Fe67 film is the single fcc phase with [111]-, [200]- and [220]-orientations in the growth direction and the [220]-orientation is stronger than the others. The as-deposited Ni21Fe79 film is a bcc phase and changes to the fcc-bcc mixed phase with increasing annealing temperature. The fcc phase is enhanced and the bcc phase is weakened with annealing temperature. The as-deposited Ni33Fe67 film consists of both columnar and triangularly columnar grains. The triangularly columnar grains disappear with increasing annealing temperature. The grain shape of the as-deposited Ni21Fe79 film is triangular column and doesn’t almost change with annealing temperature. All the films have void networks in the grain boundaries. The void networks decrease and shorten and widen with annealing temperature. The film structure change due to annealing leads to a change of the resistivity and the magnetization characteristic of the films.

DBSA-doped polyaniline powder (DBSA-PANI) was mixed with Fe nanoparticles to obtain the DBSA-PANI-Fe composite. Powder of the composite was compacted to the pellets to study the electrical property and magnetization characteristic by measuring the conductivity in 100—300 K and the magnetization curve at room temperature. The conductivity of the composite pellet is linearly decreased from 0.25±0.02 to 0.07±0.01 S/cm with increasing the Fe nanoparticle content from 0 to 70 wt%. For the pellets containing the Fe nanoparticles less than 70 wt%, the variation of conductivity with temperature reveals that the charge transport mechanism can be considered to be one-dimensional variable-range-hopping (1D-VRH). For the pellet with 70wt%-Fe nanoparticles, however, the charge transport mechanism can not be well understood in terms of the VRH model. All the DBSA-PANI-Fe composite pellets show a magnetic hysteresis loop and a hard magnetization characteristic. The saturation magnetization monotonously increases from 32 to 78 emu/g with increasing the Fe nanoparticle content from 30 to 70 wt%. The saturation field and the coercivity are estimated to be about 5500 Oe and 385 Oe respectively, independent of the Fe nanoparticle content.

Ni6Fe94 films were deposited on SiO2/Si(100) substrates at room temperature by oblique target co-sputtering and then were annealed in vacuum at 573 K, 673 K and 753 K for 1 hour, respectively. The as-deposited and annealed films mainly have a body-centered cubic structure and a [110] crystalline orientation in the film growth direction. The [110]-orientation of the film enhances with increasing annealing temperature. A face-centered cubic phase coexists in the body-centered cubic phase of the Ni6Fe94 films annealed at 673 K and 753 K. The as-deposited film grows with thin columnar grains and has a void network at the grain boundaries. The grain size does not change markedly with annealing temperature whereas the voids decrease with increasing annealing temperature. Furthermore wide and short void network is formed upon annealing. The resistivity of the film decreases with annealing temperature. The temperature coefficient of resistance of the film annealed at 753 K is larger than that of the as-deposited film. The as-deposited film shows a hard magnetization requiring a saturation field of 3.34×105 A/m. The film annealed at 753 K shows an easy magnetization characteristic and its coercivity is 2.51×104 A/m. The saturation magnetization of the film increases with annealing temperature. The as-deposited and annealed films have an isotropic magnetization characteristic.

Powder of DBSA-doped polyaniline was pressed to pellets. The pellets were annealed in vacuum at 140 ℃, 200 ℃, 260 ℃ and 320 ℃ for times up to 120 minutes. For all the annealing temperatures, the conductivity of the pellet is sharply reduced by a factor of 2 when the annealing time reaches 15 minutes. For the annealing temperatures lower than 260 ℃, the conductivity does not change almost with further increasing annealing time. However, under the annealing condition of 260℃/120min, the conductivity of the pellet decreases markedly again. Furthermore, the pellets annealed at 320 ℃ for the times longer than 30 minutes show an insulating characteristic. The pellets consist of many agglomerated particles. The agglomerated particles become large with thermal aging. When the annealing temperature reaches 320 ℃, some small sub-particles are formed on the surface of the agglomerated particles. The annealing results in a de-doping of DBSA from the polymer backbones and promotes the formation of reduction state in the polyaniline. The DBSA-doped polyaniline pellets annealed have a more porous and cracked morphology relative to the pellet unannealed. The degradation of the conductivity of the DBSA-doped polyaniline pellets is attributed to the de-doping, the phase separation and the porous and cracked morphology.