Loss of anisotropy in strained ultrathin epitaxial L10 Mn-Ga films

Abstract

In this work we are investigating the effect of strain in ultrathin Mn-Ga thin films on the magnetic properties at room temperature. Two different Mn-Ga compositions of which one is furthermore doped with Co were grown on Cr buffered MgO (001) substrates. Films with a thickness below 12nm are highly strained and it was observed that the ratio c/a vs. thickness is depending on composition. Using c/a as an order parameter the PMA is shown to be drastically reduced with increasing strain. These findings should be considered when generalizing and downscaling results obtained from films >20nm. Furthermore it has been shown, that the strain can be reduced by introducing an additional Pt buffer and thus maintaining a high PMA for a thickness as low as 6nm.

References in corpus (3)

• Perpendicularly magnetized Mn-Co-Ga-based thin films with high coercive field
• Anomalous Hall Effect in perpendicularly magnetized Mn(_{3-x})Ga thin films
• Magnetic and transport properties of tetragonal- or cubic-Heusler-type Co-substituted Mn-Ga epitaxial thin films

Cited by in corpus (4)

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• Direct measurement of the magnetic anisotropy field in Mn--Ga and Mn--Co--Ga Heusler films
• Heteroepitaxial growth of tetragonal Mn${}_{2.7-x}$Fe${}_x$Ga${}_{1.3}$ (0 $⩽$ x $⩽$ 1.2) Heusler films with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy
• Rhombic Fermi surfaces in a ferromagnetic MnGa thin film with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy