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MA: Fachverband Magnetismus

MA 15: Magnetic Thin Films II

MA 15.3: Talk

Tuesday, March 8, 2016, 10:00–10:15, H33

Magnetic properties of YCo₅ epitaxial thin films. — •Shalini Sharma, Erwin Hildebrandt, and Lambert Alff — Institute of Materials Science, Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany

Rare earth-cobalt (R-Co) intermetallic compounds are of high interest for application as high-temperature permanent magnets. YCo₅ is predicted to exhibit high anisotropy at and above room temperature with a large magnetocrystalline anisotropy constant, K₁, of about 10⁷ erg/cm³. In this work, molecular beam epitaxy was used to synthesize epitaxial thin films of YCo₅ on (0001)-oriented Al₂O₃ substrates. X-ray diffraction revealed the growth window for phase pure YCo₅ thin films. The magnetic properties of the films were investigated using a SQUID magnetometer. In phase pure thin films, the (so far) highest coercivity was measured to be 3 kOe, and the highest saturation magnetization was 472 emu/cc at 300 K. It is well known, that these values depend strongly on the exact stoichiometry of the sample. We expect that further optimization will come closer to the values reported for single crystals.