Study of interface structure of Fe/Al multilayers

Abstract

Structural and magnetic ordering of the interfaces determines the physical properties of multilayered structures. Interfaces of Fe/Al multilayers were studied using Mössbauer effect spectroscopy. The samples were fabricated by dc planar magnetron sputtering at room temperature on polyester substrates. The observed spectra indicate that the interfaces have a common structural composition and for thin Fe layers, the whole Fe layer forms mixed phases at the interface. For larger Fe layer thickness, the interface is formed using an about 12-Å-thick Fe layer. Besides the hyperfine field component of bcc Fe, six different magnetic components were identified in all samples (with larger Fe layer thickness). The intensities of the components were determined from the area under the absorption peaks of the Mössbauer spectra of the corresponding phases. The average canting angle of the Fe magnetic moments, as obtained from the spectra, indicate parallel magnetic anisotropy for all phases.

Temperature dependent energy-dispersive X-ray diffraction and magnetic study of Fe/Al interface

“…First, recently many researchers have found that with decreasing layer thicknesses as well as with annealing, severe interdiffusion occurs at Fe/Al interfaces, resulting in the formation of various kinds of aluminides [7][8][9][10][11]. Consequently, the interaction of ferromagnetic layers across different intermetallic aluminides may show anti-ferromagnetic or ferromagnetic coupling depending on the kind of aluminides.…”

Structural, magnetic, and morphological study of cosputtered FeAl thin film grown in nonreactive environment

“…Further, it has already been reported by some of the researchers that the precise nature of intermixing and compound formation depends upon the details of the deposition process and of the thermal pretreatment . In view of the fundamental point of understanding and with respect to questions concerning the reaction kinetics of an intermixing or phase formation after thermal treatment, the structure and phase composition in binary Fe/Al system is of great interest …”

“…5,8 In view of the fundamental point of understanding and with respect to questions concerning the reaction kinetics of an intermixing or phase formation after thermal treatment, the structure and phase composition in binary Fe/Al system is of great interest. 9,10 The authors observed that Fe-Al-cosputtered thin film is a system that is still unexplored, and therefore, the authors decided to synthe- The samples were characterized using the grazing incidence X-ray diffraction (GIXRD) technique and grazing incidence X-ray reflectivity (GIXRR) technique to gather structural information. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) was employed to gather surface morphology and roughness of the deposited film.…”

Temperature‐dependent magnetic and synchrotron radiation–based structural study of Fe/Al multilayers

“…The synthesis of Fe/Al MLS is not at all easy but quite complicated because of ease of Fe and Al to form aluminide compounds . It has already been stated that the exact nature of intermixing and phase formation largely depends on growth parameter and temperature . Since multilayers are inherently metastable with nanometer‐scale periodicity, the stability of the microstructure upon thermal annealing, particularly alloying, critically affects the magnetic properties, which are sensitive to the evolution of the microstructure.…”