Giant Magnetostriction in Annealed Co1-xFex Thin-Films
Abstract
Chemical and structural heterogeneity and the resulting interaction of coexisting phases can lead to extraordinary behaviours in oxides, as observed in piezoelectric materials at morphotropic phase boundaries and relaxor ferroelectrics. However, such phenomena are rare in metallic alloys. Here we show that, by tuning the presence of structural heterogeneity in textured Co(sub 1 x)Fe(sub x) thin films, effective magnetostriction (sub eff) as large as 260 p.p.m. can be achieved at lowsaturation field of ~10 mT. Assuming (sub 100) is the dominant component, this number translates to an upper limit of magnetostriction of (sub 100) 5 (sub eff) > 1,000 p.p.m. Microstructural analyses of Co(sub 1 x)Fe(sub x) films indicate that maximal magnetostriction occurs at compositions near the (fcc + bcc)/bcc phase boundary and originates from precipitation of an equilibrium Co-rich fcc phase embedded in a Fe-rich bcc matrix. The results indicate that the recently proposed heterogeneous magnetostriction mechanism can be used to guide exploration of compounds with unusual magnetoelastic properties.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Nov 01, 2011
- Accession Number
- ADA579047
Entities
People
- Apurva Mehta
- Dwight Hunter
- Jason Hattrick-simpers
- Ke Wang
- Leonid A. Bendersky
- Marcus L. Young
- Nataliya Kazantseva
- Richard Suchoski
- Ryota Takahashi
- Will Osborn
Organizations
- University of Maryland