Gölden, Dominik (2018)
Magnetocrystalline anisotropy of iron thin films with interstitial nitrogen and boron.
Technische Universität Darmstadt
Ph.D. Thesis, Primary publication
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Item Type: | Ph.D. Thesis | ||||
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Type of entry: | Primary publication | ||||
Title: | Magnetocrystalline anisotropy of iron thin films with interstitial nitrogen and boron | ||||
Language: | English | ||||
Referees: | Alff, Prof. Dr. Lambert ; Gutfleisch, Prof. Dr. Oliver ; Zhang, Jun. Prof. Hongbin ; Albert, Prof. Dr. Barbara | ||||
Date: | 2018 | ||||
Place of Publication: | Darmstadt | ||||
Date of oral examination: | 24 January 2018 | ||||
Abstract: | The permanent magnet candidate Fe8N is a metastable bct phase that has an enhanced magnetocrystalline anisotropy compared to its parent bcc phase Fe and a much discussed potential giant magnetic moment. In the first part of this work, the frame conditions to obtain Fe8N are established for thin films grown by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). It is found that temperatures of approximately 373 K, in combination with MgO (100) or MgAl2O4 (100) substrates, are required to form the phase of interest. Either FexN or Fe4N, depending on the substrate utilized, form at higher nitrogen concentrations. For higher temperatures of 473 and 623 K, the thermodynamic gamma phase becomes more pronounced and occupies a broader stability window in terms of temperature and nitrogen content compared to equilibrium conditions. From these results, a low temperature thin film phase diagram is established. The optimization of growth parameters for MBE and sputter grown Fe8N films and the subsequent determination of their magnetic properties as a function of the degree of tetragonalization is used in order to clarify the results found in the literature. While no evidence of a giant magnetic moment beyond 2.5µB per iron atom could be found, the magnetocrystalline anisotropy was increased up to 1.18x10e5 J/m3 (1.18x10e6 erg/cm3) for MBE grown and 2.05x10e5 J/m3 (2.05x10e6 erg/cm3) for sputtered films as a function of the tetragonal distortion while the magnetic easy axis aligns parallel to the c-axis. The Curie temperature was extrapolated from M vs. T plots and is reduced to (770+-73) K compared to an Fe sample with TC = (1056+-85) K. By annealing samples in vacuum at 353 and 423 K, the decomposition temperature of the phase was investigated, revealing that the onset of decomposition lies significantly lower than the previously established 453 K. An attempt to increase the decomposition temperature by introducing Co into the phase was performed for (Fe100-xCox)8N with x = 6.4, 8.5, 12.7, 14.8, and 20. However, Co is found to inhibit the incorporation of nitrogen, leading to inhomogeneous samples with a wide distribution of c-axis lattice constants most likely due to a mix- ture of FeCo and Fe-N phases. Furthermore, boron instead of nitrogen interstitials are introduced into the Fe lattice as a potential method to increase the decomposition temperature. A deposition temperature of 573 K is required in order to obtain crystalline samples for the maximum boron content of 13 at.% in the films, determined by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. Qualitatively identical to the evolution observed for Fe8N, the c-axis lattice constants of the Fe-B samples increase as a function of boron content while the a-axis lattice constants shrink. Compared to the Fe-N case with a c=a ratio of 1.11, the maximum c/a observed for the Fe-B samples is 1.05. In addition, the magnetic easy axis remains in-plane while the absolute value of magnetic anisotropy increases to -5.1x10e5 J/m3 (-5.1x10e6 erg/cm3). Density functional theory confirms these results and shows that the local boron ordering is found to be the reason for the easy-plane configuration. |
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URN: | urn:nbn:de:tuda-tuprints-72531 | ||||
Classification DDC: | 500 Science and mathematics > 500 Science 500 Science and mathematics > 530 Physics 600 Technology, medicine, applied sciences > 620 Engineering and machine engineering |
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Divisions: | 11 Department of Materials and Earth Sciences > Material Science > Advanced Thin Film Technology | ||||
Date Deposited: | 16 Feb 2018 13:05 | ||||
Last Modified: | 09 Jul 2020 02:02 | ||||
URI: | https://tuprints.ulb.tu-darmstadt.de/id/eprint/7253 | ||||
PPN: | 426506839 | ||||
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