The features of Ni2MnIn polycrystalline Heusler alloy thin films formation by pulsed laser deposition

Abstract

Abstract The Ni-Mn-In-based Heusler alloys belong to the most studied intermetallic compounds due to a variety of physical effects inherent to them, including the shape memory and magnetocaloric effect, field-induced structural phase transition, and others. All of these properties are strongly depend on element concentrations, uniformity, and purity of the structure. Therefore, rather strict requirements are imposed on the synthesis technology of such samples. We report the dependencies of Ni-Mn-In polycrystalline thin film composition on growth parameters. It was shown that the composition mismatch between sample and target caused by the resputtering of the sample material with high-energy particles of the ablation plume, and the different ablation yields of elements from the target. The main deposition parameters demonstrated (Ar growth pressure, laser energies, substrate temperature and annealing, target-to-sample distance) for the co-deposition process to obtain the Ni-Mn-In Heusler alloy polycrystalline thin films with the martensitic transition.