Magnetic properties of epitaxial single crystal ultrathin Fe₃Si films on GaAs (001)

Authors

Sy_Hwang Liou, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
S.S. Malhotra, University of Nebraska - Lincoln
J.X. Shen, University of Nebraska - Lincoln
M. Hong, AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, New Jersey
J. Kwo, AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, New Jersey
H.S. Chen, AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, New Jersey
J.P. Mannaerts, AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, New Jersey

Date of this Version

May 1993

Comments

Published by American Institute of Physics. J. Appl. Phys., 73, 6766(1993). ©1993 American Institute of Physics. Permission to use. http://jap.aip.org/jap/.

Abstract

Magnetic properties of Fe₃Si films with thickness from 2 to 210 monolayers (ML) epitaxially grown on GaAs (001) were studied using a superconducting quantum interference device and alternating gradient force magnetometers. Growth of these single-crystal intermetallic compound films were carried out in a multichamber molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) system. The samples were covered in situ with Au 50 Å thick to prevent oxidation when the samples were removed from the MBE chamber. All the films are ferromagnetic even for samples as thin as 2 ML. The easy magnetization direction of the films is parallel to the film surface. The magnetic coercivity forces (H_c) of the samples increase as the film thickness decreases to 10 ML, and then decrease when the film thickness decreases further to 2 ML.