Phase separation in Fe₂CrSi thin films

Abstract

Thin films of a nominal Fe 2 CrSi alloy have been deposited by magnetron co-sputtering with various heat treatments on MgO and MgAl 2 O 4 substrates. After heat treatment, the films were found to decompose into a nearly epitaxial Fe 3 Si film with the D0 3 structure and Cr 3 Si precipitates with the A15 structure. We explain the experimental results on the basis of ab initio calculations, which reveal that this decomposition is energetically highly favorable.