Structure and magnetic research of the epitaxial Co2FeAl films on the MgO substrates

In this paper, a series of Co2FeAl(CFA) films are prepared on the MgO (001) substrates at different temperatures, and the structural and magnetic properties are well studied. Our results demonstrate that the room temperature-prepared CFA film is an amorphous structure with a very weak magnetic anisotropy and low saturated magnetization. However, when the grown temperature increases to about 300 degrees C, the CFA films start to be grown epitaxially on the MgO substrates with highly or some L2(1) ordered structures. Besides, magnetic measurements suggest that both the saturated magnetization and uniaxial anisotropy enhances slightly with increasing grown temperatures, which can be attributed to the improved crystal quality of the film and lattice tensile strain of the substrate, respectively. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.