Fabrication of L10-FeNi films by denitriding FeNiN films

Abstract

L1 0 -FeNi films textured with the a-axis perpendicular to the film plane were successfully fabricated by denitriding FeNiN films. 20-nm-thick FeNiN films with two variants were epitaxially grown on SrTiO 3 (001), MgAl 2 O 4 (001), and MgO(001) substrates by molecular beam epitaxy. Denitriding was performed by annealing at 300 °C for 4 h under an H 2 gas atmosphere. The epitaxial relationships were L1 0 -FeNi[001](100) || substrate[100](001) and L1 0 -FeNi[010](100) || substrate[100](001). The uniaxial magnetic anisotropy energy (K u ) of the L1 0 -FeNi film was estimated to be 4.4 × 10 6 erg/cm 3 at room temperature by magnetic torque measurement. This K u value corresponds to a degree of long range order of 0.4.