TY - JOUR
T1 - Structural insight using anomalous XRD into Mn2CoAl Heusler alloy films grown by magnetron sputtering, IBAS, and MBE techniques
AU - Tajiri, Hiroo
AU - Kumara, Loku Singgappulige Rosantha
AU - Sakuraba, Yuya
AU - Chen, Zixi
AU - Wang, Jian
AU - Zhou, Weinan
AU - Varun, Kushwaha
AU - Ueda, Kenji
AU - Yamada, Shinya
AU - Hamaya, Kohei
AU - Hono, Kazuhiro
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors thank to Drs. T. Sasaki and X. Xu for valuable discussions. The synchrotron radiation experiments were performed on beamline BL13XU at SPring-8 with the approval of the JASRI (proposal Nos. 2017B1313, 2018A1231, 2018B0927, 2018B1162, 2018B1538, and 2018B2092). This work was partially supported by JSPS KAKENHI (grant Nos. 17H06152 and 18KK0111) and PRESTO from the Japan Science and Technology Agency (No. JPMJPR17R5).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 The Authors
PY - 2022/8/15
Y1 - 2022/8/15
N2 - Inverse Heusler alloy Mn2CoAl thin films, known as a spin-gapless semiconductor (SGS), grown by three different methods—ultra-high vacuum magnetron sputtering, Ar-ion beam assisted sputtering, and molecular beam epitaxy—are investigated by comparing their electric transport properties, microstructures and atomic-level structures. Of the samples, the Mn2CoAl thin film grown by molecular beam epitaxy consists of Mn- and Co-rich phases, the structures of which are determined to be the L21B-type and disordered L21-type, respectively, according to anomalous X-ray diffraction analysis. None of them forms the XA-type structure expected for SGS Heusler alloy, although they all exhibit SGS characteristics. To validate the SGS characteristics, it is necessary to extract not only the magnetic and electric transport properties but also information about microstructures and atomic-scale structures of the films including defects such as atomic swap.
AB - Inverse Heusler alloy Mn2CoAl thin films, known as a spin-gapless semiconductor (SGS), grown by three different methods—ultra-high vacuum magnetron sputtering, Ar-ion beam assisted sputtering, and molecular beam epitaxy—are investigated by comparing their electric transport properties, microstructures and atomic-level structures. Of the samples, the Mn2CoAl thin film grown by molecular beam epitaxy consists of Mn- and Co-rich phases, the structures of which are determined to be the L21B-type and disordered L21-type, respectively, according to anomalous X-ray diffraction analysis. None of them forms the XA-type structure expected for SGS Heusler alloy, although they all exhibit SGS characteristics. To validate the SGS characteristics, it is necessary to extract not only the magnetic and electric transport properties but also information about microstructures and atomic-scale structures of the films including defects such as atomic swap.
KW - Anomalous X-ray diffraction
KW - Atomic-level structures
KW - Element-specific analysis
KW - Heusler alloys
KW - Spin gapless semiconductor
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U2 - 10.1016/j.actamat.2022.118063
DO - 10.1016/j.actamat.2022.118063
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85132318388
SN - 1359-6454
VL - 235
JO - Acta Materialia
JF - Acta Materialia
M1 - 118063
ER -