Bulklike behavior of magnetoelasticity in epitaxial Fe1-xGax thin films

Abstract

Bulk Fe1-xGax alloys present a strong sensitivity of the magnetostrictive properties with Ga content with maximum magnetostriction near x=0.19. Here, we present magnetoelastic coefficients measured by the cantilever method on Fe1-xGax thin films grown by molecular beam epitaxy on GaAs(001). We find that Ga-dependent magnetoelastic coefficients in nanometer thin films are comparable in magnitude to the respective bulk values. Moreover, we compare thin films with a tetragonal structure due to a slightly preferential alignment of Ga pairs along the growth direction with and a cubic structure. It turns out that magnetoelastic coefficients are unaffected by a preferential alignment of Ga pairs along the growth direction.