Room-temperature epitaxial growth of ferromagnetic Fe_3Si films on Si(111) by facing target direct-current sputtering

摘要

Ferromagnetic Fe_3Si thin films with an extremely smooth surface morphology can be epitaxially grown on Si(111) at room temperature by facing target direct-current sputtering. The epitaxial relationship is Fe_3Si(111)‖Si(111) with Fe_3Si[110]‖Si[110]. By the application of the extinction rule of x-ray diffraction, the generated Fe_3Si was confirmed to possess a B_2 structure and not a DO_3 one. The film showed a saturation magnetization value of 960 emu/cm~3, which was slightly lower than that of bulk DO_3-Fe_3Si. It was observed that the magnetization easy axis was along the [110] direction in the film plane.