Artificial Single Variant Martensite in Freestanding Fe70Pd30 Films Obtained by Coherent Epitaxial Growth

The mechanically soft behavior of the magnetic shape-memory material Fe70Pd30 allows huge tetragonal distortions to be stabilized in sputtered thin films by coherent epitaxial growth on various metallic buffers. Furthermore, it is demonstrated that epitaxial films more than 1 mu m thick can be grown, which makes possible freestanding films in an artificial single variant state suitable for micro-actuators and sensors.