Structural and magnetic phenomena in Ni53Mn25Al22 thin film prepared by rf magnetron sputtering

Abstract

Magnetic and structural properties of Ni-Mn-Al thin films are investigated. It is demonstrated that the annealed film shows L2 1 phase at room temperature. Magnetometry measurements reveal that the annealed film is ferromagnetic and a first order transition in magnetization versus temperature measurement confirms that the martensite to austenite transition occurs around room temperature. Transmission electron microscopy measurements confirm that this structural change occurs just below room temperature. The splitting of Mn 2p 3/2 level in x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy core level spectra of the annealed Ni-Mn-Al film, confirms that the origin of magnetism is definitely correlated with the local magnetic moment at the Mn atoms.

Self‐Patterning of Multifunctional Heusler Membranes by Dewetting

“…[34] Indeed, most polycrystalline Ni-Mn-based Heusler films are (110)-textured, [35] or reach a (110)-texture after annealing. [36] Moreover, this orientation is sometimes observed with increasing film thickness in originally (001)-oriented films. [19] We expect that {100} planes exhibit a slightly higher energy, but during epitaxial growth on MgO(001) this orientation is induced by the substrate orientation with identical symmetry.…”

Interfacial exchange interactions and magnetism of Ni2MnAl/Fe bilayers

“…Ni 2 MnAl has been in the center of former studies regarding shape memory applications [6][7][8] because of its capability to change its magnetic order along with its chemical order. The existence of exchange bias (EB) was reported for Heusler alloys which undergo martensitic phase transitions 9 , for Ru 2 MnGe/Fe bilayers 10 and, recently, Tsuchiya et al published an experimental study of EB in Ni 2 MnAl/Fe bilayers 11 .…”

“…Ni 2 MnAl in the disordered B2 phase has a perfectly compensated antiferromagnetic ground state, where the Al and Ni atoms possess no net magnetic moment and the site and antisite Mn atoms are equivalent [4]. Ni 2 MnAl has been at the center of former studies regarding shape memory applications [6][7][8] because of its capability to change its magnetic order along with its chemical order. The existence of exchange bias (EB) was reported for Heusler alloys which undergo martensitic phase transitions [9] and for Ru 2 MnGe/Fe bilayers [10], and recently, Tsuchiya et al published an experimental study of EB in Ni 2 MnAl/Fe bilayers [11].…”