Magnetization behaviors for FeRh single crystal thin films

The structural and magnetic phase transition in FeRh thin films are investigated. The (001) oriented single crystal FeRh thin films fabricated onto MgO (100) substrate possess lattice parameter a smaller than c, because of the compressive stress along the a axis from MgO substrate. With increasing annealing temperature, paramagnetic FeRh thin films transform into ferromagnetic and then antiferromagnetic-ferromagnetic (AF-FM) stages. The transition temperature of AF-FM increases with annealing temperature, while the thermal hysteresis width decreases. The M-H loops of the film annealed at 700 degrees C show an opening at high magnetic fields during the transition state. Note that the opening in M-H loops disappears when AF phase has transformed into FM phase. The origin of the opening is not known but possibly due to the combination of hysteresis loops of FM and AF phases, where FM phase is soft magnetic and the AF phase FeRh shows a hysteresis behavior with coercivity due to the reduction of magnetic anisotropy at high temperatures. The abrupt change of coercivity along the perpendicular direction during the AF-FM transition suggests that a stress-induced magnetic anisotropy exists in FeRh thin films due to the volume expansion in the phase transition process. (C) 2008 American Institute of Physics.