No Arabic abstract
We investigated structural, magnetic and electrical properties of sputter deposited Mn-Fe-Ga compounds. The crystallinity of the Mn-Fe-Ga thin films was confirmed using x-ray diffraction. X-ray reflection and atomic force microscopy measurements were utilized to investigate the surface properties, roughness, thickness and density of the deposited Mn-Fe-Ga. Depending on the stoichiometry, as well as the used substrates (SrTiO3 (001) and MgO (001)) or buffer layer (TiN) the Mn-Fe-Ga crystallizes in the cubic or the tetragonally distorted phase. Anomalous Hall effect and alternating gradient magnetometry measurements confirmed strong perpendicular magnetocrystalline anisotropy. Low saturation magnetization and hard magnetic behavior was reached by tuning the composition. Temperature dependent anomalous Hall effect measurements in a closed cycle He-cryostat showed a slight increase in coercivity with decreasing temperature (300K to 2K). TiN buffered Mn2.7Fe0.3Ga revealed sharper switching of the magnetization compared to the unbuffered layers.
Although a cubic phase of Mn$_3$Ga with an antiferromagnetic order has been theoretically predicted, it has not been experimentally verified in a bulk or film form. Here, we report the structural, magnetic, and electrical properties of antiferromagnetic cubic Mn$_3$Ga (C-Mn$_3$Ga) thin films, in comparison with ferrimagnetic tetragonal Mn$_3$Ga (T-Mn3Ga). The structural analyses reveal that C-Mn$_3$Ga is hetero-epitaxially grown on MgO substrate with the Cu$_3$Au-type cubic structure, which transforms to T-Mn$_3$Ga as the RF sputtering power increases. The magnetic and magnetotransport data show the antiferromagnetic transition at T$_N$ = 400 K for C-Mn$_3$Ga and the ferrimagnetic transition at T$_C$ = 820 K for T-Mn$_3$Ga. Furthermore, we find that the antiferromagnetic C-Mn$_3$Ga exhibits a higher electrical resistivity than the ferrimagnetic T-Mn$_3$Ga, which can be understood by spin-dependent scattering mechanism.
We grow epitaxial Sm-Co thin films by sputter deposition from an alloy target with a nominal SmCo5 composition on Cr(100)-buffered MgO(100) single-crystal substrates. By varying the Ar gas pressure, we can change the composition of the film from a SmCo5-like to a Sm2Co7-like phase. The composition, crystal structure, morphology and magnetic properties of these films have been determined using Rutherford Backscattering, X-ray diffraction and magnetization measurements. We find that the various properties are sensitive to the sputter background pressure in different ways. In particular, the lattice parameter changes in a continuous way, the coercive fields vary continuously with a maximum value of 3.3 T, but the saturation magnetization peaks when the lattice parameter is close to that of Sm2Co7. Moreover, we find that the Sm content of the films is higher than expected from the expected stoichiometry.
The composition dependence of the structural, magnetic, and transport properties of epitaxially grown Mn-Co-Ga films were investigated. The crystal structure was observed to change from tetragonal to cubic as the Co content was increased. In terms of the dependence of saturation magnetization on the Co content, relatively small value was obtained for the Mn$_{2.3}$Co$_{0.4}$Ga$_{1.3}$ film at a large {it K}$_textrm u$ value of 9.2 Merg/cm$^3$. Electrical resistivity of Mn-Co-Ga films was larger than that of pure Mn-Ga film. The maximum value of the resistivity was 490 $muOmega$cm for Mn$_{2.2}$Co$_{0.6}$Ga$_{1.2}$ film. The high resistivity of Mn-Co-Ga might be due to the presence of localized electron states in the films due to chemical disordering caused by the Co substitution.
We studied the structural and magnetic properties of FeC~thin films deposited by co-sputtering of Fe and C targets in a direct current magnetron sputtering (dcMS) process at a substrate temperature (Ts) of 300, 523 and 773,K. The structure and morphology was measured using x-ray diffraction (XRD), x-ray absorption near edge spectroscopy (XANES) at Fe $L$ and C $K$-edges and atomic/magnetic force microscopy (AFM, MFM), respectively. An ultrathin (3,nm) $^{57}$FeC~layer, placed between relatively thick FeC~layers was used to estimate Fe self-diffusion taking place during growth at different Ts~using depth profiling measurements. Such $^{57}$FeC~layer was also used for $^{57}$Fe conversion electron M{o}ssbauer spectroscopy (CEMS) and nuclear resonance scattering (NRS) measurements, yielding the magnetic structure of this ultrathin layer. We found from XRD measurements that the structure formed at low Ts~(300,K) is analogous to Fe-based amorphous alloy and at high Ts~(773,K), pre-dominantly a tifc~phase has been formed. Interestingly, at an intermediate Ts~(523,K), a clear presence of tefc~(along with tifc~and Fe) can be seen from the NRS spectra. The microstructure obtained from AFM images was found to be in agreement with XRD results. MFM images also agrees well with NRS results as the presence of multi-magnetic components can be clearly seen in the sample grown at Ts~= 523,K. The information about the hybridization between Fe and C, obtained from Fe $L$ and C $K$-edges XANES also supports the results obtained from other measurements. In essence, from this work, experimental realization of tefc~has been demonstrated. It can be anticipated that by further fine-tuning the deposition conditions, even single phase tefc~phase can be realized which hitherto remains an experimental challenge.
Structural and magnetic properties of GaAs thin films with embedded MnAs nanoclusters were investigated as function of the annealing temperature and layers composition. The presence of two kinds of nanoclusters with different dimensions and structure were detected. The fraction of Mn atoms in each kind of cluster was estimated from the extended X-ray absorption fine structure analysis. This analysis ruled out the possibility of the existence of nanoclusters containing a hypothetic MnAs cubic compound - only (Mn,Ga)As cubic clusters were detected. Change of the layer strain from the compressive to tensile was related to the fraction of zinc blende and hexagonal inclusions. Thus the zinc blende inclusions introduce much larger strain than hexagonal ones. The explanation of observed thermal induced strain changes of the layers from the compressive to tensile is proposed. The magnetic properties of the samples were consistent with structural study results. Their showed that in sample containing solely cubic (Mn,Ga)As inclusions Mn ions inside the inclusions are still ferromagnetically coupled, even at room temperature. This fact can be explained by existence in these clusters of GaMnAs solid solution with content of Mn higher than 15 % as was found in theoretical calculations.