Dearg, M., Burnell, G., Langridge, S. et al. (1 more author) (2025) Growth and characterization of �-Mn structured CoZn thin films. Physical Review Materials, 9 (7). 074401. ISSN: 2475-9953
Abstract
Thin films of polycrystalline �-Mn structure CoZn have been grown on thermally oxidized Si substrates by cosputtering from elemental targets followed by annealing. A range of films grown with variable Co deposition power and fixed Zn deposition power was produced, so as to vary the proportions of the two elements reaching the substrate, which were annealed postgrowth. While all films exhibited a (221) �-Mn structure CoZn texture in x-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy showed that the composition with the highest integrated intensity for that Bragg peak contained large voids and was covered by a thick ZnO cap owing to being Co deficient overall. CoZn films deposited at ratios tuned to give the optimal volume fraction of �-Mn were continuous, with crystallites up to 200 nm in size, with a much thinner ZnO cap layer. Magnetic measurements show that such optimal CoZn films have a Curie temperature �C∼420K and saturation magnetization of 120emu/cm3, properties close to those reported for bulk crystals. Excess Co beyond this point leads to a significant retained ferromagnetism above the Curie point of the CoZn, suggesting Co-rich aggregates. The �-Mn structure is chiral (�4132/�4332 space group) and is known to give rise to a Dzyaloshinkii-Moriya interaction (DMI) that stabilizes room-temperature skyrmions in the bulk. Our thin films are thus a potential materials platform, compatible with planar processing technology, for magnetic skyrmions arising from a bulk DMI.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | This item is protected by copyright. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
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) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 16 Jun 2025 09:38 |
Last Modified: | 05 Aug 2025 10:43 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | American Physical Society |
Identification Number: | 10.1103/rfjk-km1b |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:227764 |