Structural characterization and magnetic properties of perpendicularly magnetized MnAl films grown by molecular-beam epitaxy

Abstract

Perpendicularly magnetized MnAlx thin films with different Al contents have been epitaxied on GaAs (001) substrates by a molecular-beam epitaxy system. Crystalline quality of MnAlx films is closely related to Al content, and magnetic properties of MnAlx films are improved as crystalline quality of MnAlx fims increases. MnAl0.9 film shows the best crystalline quality and magnetic property among all samples. So we grew MnAl0.9 films at different growth temperatures to further optimize growth conditions. With increasing temperature, the chemical order parameter increases and the full width at half maximum of the τ(002) peak decreases, which reveal the improvement of crystalline quality. Higher perpendicular magnetization, coercivity and magnetic anisotropy are found as growth temperature increases. The best crystalline quality and perpendicularly magnetized properties are found at 350℃; the coercivity of 8.3 kOe, saturation magnetization of 265 emu/cm3, Mr/Ms of 0.933 and perpendicular magnetic anisotropy constant of 7.74 Merg/cm3 are achieved. These tunable perpendicularly magnetized properties and good compatibility associated with semiconductor materials make the noble-metal-free and rare-earth-free MnAl films attractive in the application of spintronic devices.