[Back]

J. Gloss, S. Shah Zaman, J. Jonner, Z. Novotny, M. Schmid, P. Varga, M. Urbanek:
"Ion-beam-induced magnetic and structural phase transformation of Ni-stabilized face-centered-cubic Fe films on Cu(100)";
Applied Physics Letters, 103 (2013), 2624051 - 2624054.

Metastable face-centered cubic (fcc) Fe/Cu(100) thin films are good candidates for ion-beam
magnetic patterning due to their magnetic transformation upon ion-beam irradiation. However,
pure fcc Fe films undergo spontaneous transformation when their thickness exceeds 10 ML. This
limit can be extended to approximately 22 ML by deposition of Fe at increased CO background
pressures. We show that much thicker films can be grown by alloying with Ni for stabilizing the
fcc c phase. The amount of Ni necessary to stabilize nonmagnetic, transformable fcc Fe films in
dependence on the residual background pressure during the deposition is determined and a phase
diagram revealing the transformable region is presented