Interface effects in highly oriented films of the Heusler alloy Co 2MnSi on GaAs(001)

L. J. Singh*, Z. H. Barber, A. Kohn, A. K. Petford-Long, Y. Miyoshi, Y. Bugoslavsky, L. F. Cohen

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

36 Scopus citations

Abstract

Highly (001) oriented thin films of Co2 MnSi have been grown on lattice-matched GaAs(001) without a buffer layer. Stoichiometric films grown at the highest substrate temperature of 689 K showed the lowest resistivity (33 μΩ cm at 4.2 K) and the lowest coercivity (14 Oe). Twofold in-plane magnetic anisotropy was observed due to the inequivalence of the 〈110〉 directions, and this was attributed to the nature of the bonding at the reconstructed GaAs surface. Interfacial reactions resulted in the formation of an epitaxial Mn-As region and a thin interfacial layer that was Co-Ga rich. This prevented the desired lattice matching and resulted in films with a saturation magnetization slightly below the bulk value. In spite of this, the spin polarization of the free surface was measured to be 55%, similar to bulk material.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number013904
JournalJournal of Applied Physics
Volume99
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - 2006

Funding

This work was supported by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, UK. The authors are grateful to W. Eerenstein for help with the high-resolution x-ray diffraction work and to A. Ionescu for useful discussions.

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Physics and Astronomy

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