Almeida, TP, Temple, R orcid.org/0000-0002-2461-9022, Massey, J et al. (5 more authors) (2017) Quantitative TEM imaging of the magnetostructural and phase transitions in FeRh thin film systems. Scientific Reports, 7 (1). 17835. ISSN 2045-2322
Abstract
Equi-atomic FeRh is a very interesting material as it undergoes a magnetostructural transition from an antiferromagnetic (AF) to a ferromagnetic (FM) phase between 75-105 °C. Its ability to present phase co-existence separated by domain walls (DWs) above room temperature provides immense potential for exploitation of their DW motion in spintronic devices. To be able to effectively control the DWs associated with AF/FM coexistence in FeRh thin films we must fully understand the magnetostructural transition and thermomagnetic behaviour of DWs at a localised scale. Here we present a transmission electron microscopy investigation of the transition in planar FeRh thin-film samples by combining differential phase contrast (DPC) magnetic imaging with in situ heating. We perform quantitative measurements from individual DWs as a function of temperature, showing that FeRh on NiAl exhibits thermomagnetic behaviour consistent with the transition from AF to FM. DPC imaging of an FeRh sample with HF-etched substrate reveals a state of AF/FM co-existence and shows the transition from AF to FM regions proceeds via nucleation of small vortex structures, which then grow by combining with newly nucleated vortex states into larger complex magnetic domains, until it is in a fully-FM state.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s) 2017. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
Keywords: | Magnetic properties and materials; Phase transitions and critical phenomena |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Engineering & Physical Sciences (Leeds) > School of Physics and Astronomy (Leeds) > Condensed Matter (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 19 Jan 2018 16:45 |
Last Modified: | 19 Jan 2018 16:45 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Nature Publishing Group |
Identification Number: | 10.1038/s41598-017-18194-0 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:126386 |