Thickness-dependent structural, magnetic and transport properties of epitaxial Co2FeAl Heusler alloy thin films

TL;DR

This study investigates how the structural, magnetic, and transport properties, including the anomalous Hall effect, of epitaxial Co2FeAl Heusler alloy thin films vary with film thickness, revealing key insights into their electronic and magnetic behaviors.

Contribution

It provides a systematic analysis of the thickness-dependent properties of Co2FeAl films, highlighting the dominance of skew scattering in anomalous Hall resistivity and the influence of interfaces.

Findings

Epitaxial CFA films exhibit a highly ordered B2 structure.

Anomalous Hall resistivity is dominated by skew scattering regardless of thickness.

Weak temperature dependence of anomalous Hall resistivity suggests stable spin polarization.

Abstract

We report on a systematic study of the structural, magnetic properties and the anomalous Hall effect, in the Heusler alloy Co2FeAl (CFA) epitaxial films on MgO(001), as a function of film thickness. It was found that the epitaxial CFA films show a highly ordered B2 structure with an in-plane uniaxial magnetic anisotropy. An analysis of the electrical transport properties reveals that the lattice and magnon scattering contributions to the longitudinal resistivity. Independent on the thickness of films, the anomalous Hall resistivity of CFA films is found to be dominated by skew scattering only. Moreover, the anomalous Hall resistivity shows weakly temperature dependent behavior, and its absolute value increases as the thickness decreases. We attribute this temperature insensitivity in the anomalous Hall resistivity to the weak temperature dependent of tunneling spin-polarization in the CFA films, while the thickness dependence behavior is likely due to the increasing significance of interface or free surface electronic states.