Magnetic and transport properties in thin film of Fe2CrAl

Preliminary results on magnetic and transport properties of a thin film of disordered Fe2CrAl deposited on (111) Si by pulsed laser deposition is reported in this study. While the bulk arc melted ingot used as target for the deposition is purely ferromagnetic, the film shows the co-existence of different magnetic phases, which arises due to the granular nature of the film. This is because, although the average composition pertains to Fe2CrAl, local disorder results in the formation of grains with different magnetic states that may be ferromagnetic or may consist of magnetic clusters. The resulting magnetic inhomogeneity of the thin film leads to large values of negative temperature coefficient of resistance of approximate to 22%/K at 260K.