Effect of growth conditions on magnetization reversal and magnetic anisotropy in Co2Fe0.5Ti0.5Si quaternary Heusler alloy thin films

Abstract

Ferromagnetic resonance and magneto-optic Kerr effect (MOKE) techniques are employed to unravel the nature of ‘in-plane’ (IP) magnetic anisotropy and magnetization reversal (MR) processes in magnetron-sputtered 100 nm Co2Fe0.5Ti0.5Si (CFTS) thin films, deposited (and subsequently annealed) at different substrate temperatures (Ts) ranging from 200 °C to 550 °C. By varying TS, the CFTS films are produced with different amounts of anti-site (AS) atomic disorder. Irrespective of the degree of AS disorder, the IP uniaxial magnetic anisotropy (UMA) is prevalent in all the CFTS films. The TS450 and TS500 films, deposited at T S = 450 °C and 500 °C, stand out as they have (i) the least AS disorder, (ii) lowest value (α = 0.0055) of the Gilbert damping constant, (iii) high saturation magnetization ( ≅770 G ) at 300 K, (iv) UMA energy density as high as ≅1.6×104erg/cc at 120 K dropping to ≅1.0×104erg/cc at 300 K, (v) spin-wave stiffness ( D ) at T = 0 K, D0≅175 meVÅ2 and, as in other CFTS films, the electron–magnon interaction is primarily responsible for the thermal renormalization of D . Furthermore, in the TS450 and TS500 films, MOKE hysteresis loops at various angles ( ψH ) that the field makes with the easy axis in the film plane, reveals two mutually exclusive UMAs, UMA1≫UMA2 , with easy axes perpendicular to each other. By contrast, only a single UMA is observed in all the remaining films. When ψH=0∘ , MOKE domain images reveal that, consistent with the uniaxial nature of magnetic anisotropy, an abrupt reversal of magnetization is accompanied by the formation of 180° domains. When ψH = 90°, due to the presence of two UMAs in TS450 and TS500 films, following the field reversal, first the reverse domains nucleate and then grow at the expense of the fundamental domains through field-induced domain wall motion.