Martensite transformations in Mn2NiGa thin films grown on GaAs substrates

Abstract

The purpose of this work is to investigate the correlation between magnetism and crystallographic structures of Mn2NiGa thin films grown by molecular beam epitaxy on GaAs(1 1 1) and GaAs(0 0 1) surfaces. The films present themselves with thermoelastic martensitic transformations upon cooling, and heating with high-temperature leads to austenite structures exhibiting a preferable (1 1 0) texture. X-ray diffraction measurements performed as a function of temperature reveal three different types of domain variants in the films within a large interval of temperatures. The austenite structures with lattice parameters ranging from 0.574 nm to 0.601 nm undergo volume conserving structural transitions to martensite with a c/a ratio of 1.2. The coexistence of variants with different domain configurations is induced on each GaAs substrate. Although the Curie temperatures (~360 K) are similar for films grown on GaAs(1 1 1) and GaAs (0 0 1) substrates, their saturation magnetizations are respectively 18 kA m−1 and 8 kA m−1 at room temperature and exhibit quite different magnetic irreversibility behaviors. Our results indicate that a multiplicity of possible equivalent variant domains on the GaAs surfaces makes it difficult to stabilize epitaxial films on these substrates.