Epitaxial growth and some magnetic properties of ferromagnetic films

Abstract

A review of the existing theories of epitaxy is given and it is emphasised that the temperature at which epitaxy occurs is a function of conditions under which the film is deposited. A series of iron films were deposited on cleaved NaCl, NaBr, KCl and polished (100),(110) NaCl faces. A study of the conditions underwhich single crystal films can he grown was made.KCl and NaCI are the substrates on which iron films of singleorientation can he prepared. Iron films were continuous at athickness of 400A. A comparison of growth of films on surfaces cleaved in air and also on those cleaved in vacuum was made. Decoration and replication techniques were employed. The decoration features were observed on air cleaved surfaces and on those cleaved in vacuum and exposed to air. No decoration was observed on vacuum cleavedsurfaces not exposed to air. The decoration features in the caseof iron persisted upto 100A instead of < 20A in the case of gold. This difference is explained in terms of the lower mobility of iron as compared, to gold. Nickel films were grown on freshly epitaxed copper on sodium chloride and the azimuthal anisotropy in Faraday Rotation on (100) and (110) films was investigated.