Epitaxial Fe16N2 thin film on nonmagnetic seed layer

Metastable alpha ''-Fe16N2 has attracted much interest as a candidate for rare-earth-free hard magnetic materials. We demonstrate that Fe16N2 thin films were grown epitaxially on Cr seed layers with MgO (001) substrates by facing-target sputtering. Good crystallinity with the epitaxial relation MgO (001)[110] parallel to Cr (001)[100] parallel to Fe16N2 (001)[100] was obtained. The chemical order parameter, which quantifies the degree of N ordering in the Fe16N2 (the N-disordered phase is alpha'-Fe8N martensite), reaches 0.75 for Cr-seeded samples. Cr has a perfect lattice constant match with Fe16N2, and no noticeable strain can be assigned to Fe16N2. The intrinsic saturation magnetization of this non-strained Fe16N2 thin film at room temperature is determined to be 2.31 T by polarized neutron reflectometry and confirmed with vibrating sample magnetometry. Our work provides a platform to directly study the magnetic properties of high purity Fe16N2 films with a high order parameter. Published by AIP Publishing.