Department of Physics and Astronomy: Publications and Other Research

 

Document Type

Article

Date of this Version

2016

Citation

AIP ADVANCES 6, 056211 (2016)

http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4943537

Comments

Copyright 2016 Author(s). All article content, except where otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

Abstract

The effect of substrates on the magnetic and transport properties of Ni2Mn1.5In0.5 ultra-thin films were studied theoretically and experimentally. High quality 8-nm films were grown by laser-assisted molecular beam epitaxy deposition. Magnetotransport measurements revealed that the films undergo electronic structure transformation similar to those of bulk materials at the martensitic transformation. The temperature of the transformation depends strongly on lattice parameters of the substrate. To explain this behavior, we performed DFT calculations on the system and found that different substrates change the relative stability of the ferromagnetic (FM) austenite and ferrimagnetic (FiM) martensite states. We conclude that the energy difference between the FM austenite and FiM martensite states in Ni2Mn1.5In0.5 films grown on MgO (001) substrates is ΔE = 0.20 eV per NiMnIn f.u, somewhat lower compared to ΔE = 0.24 eV in the bulk material with the same lattice parameters. When the lattice parameters of Ni2Mn1.5In0.5 film have values close to those of the MgO substrate, the energy difference becomes ΔE = 0.08 eV per NiMnIn f.u. These results suggest the possibility to control the martensitic transition in thin films through substrate engineering.

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