Epitaxial growth of high quality $Mn_3Sn$ thin films by pulsed laser deposition

TL;DR

This study demonstrates the successful fabrication of high-quality epitaxial Mn3Sn thin films using pulsed laser deposition, exhibiting properties comparable to single crystals, thus enabling potential device applications.

Contribution

It is the first report of epitaxial Mn3Sn thin films with high structural and functional quality grown by PLD, expanding possibilities for practical applications.

Findings

Large anomalous Hall effect observed at room temperature.

Epitaxial films show magneto-optical Kerr effect comparable to single crystals.

Successful growth on Al2O3 and MgO substrates.

Abstract

Non-collinear antiferromagnet Weyl semimetal $Mn_3Sn$ have attracted great research interest recently. Although large anomalous Hall effect, anomalous Nernst effect and magneto-optical effect have been observed in $Mn_3Sn$, most studies are based on single crystals. So far, it is still challenging to grow high quality epitaxial $Mn_3Sn$ thin films with transport and optical properties comparable to their single crystal counterparts. Here, we report the structure, magneto-optical and transport properties of epitaxial $Mn_3Sn$ thin films fabricated by pulsed laser deposition (PLD). Highly oriented $Mn_{3+x}Sn_{1-x}$ (0001) and (11$\bar2$0) epitaxial films are successfully growth on single crystalline $Al_2O_3$ and MgO substrates. Large anomalous Hall effect (AHE) up to $\left| \Delta R_H\right|$=3.02 $\mu\Omega\cdot cm$, and longitudinal magneto-optical Kerr effect (LMOKE) with $\theta_K$ = 38.1 mdeg at 633 nm wavelength are measured at 300 K temperature, which are comparable to $Mn_3Sn$ single crystals. Our work demonstrates that high quality $Mn_3Sn$ epitaxial thin films can be fabricated by PLD, paving the way for future device applications.