Fabrication and characterization of Fe81Ga19 thin films

In order to incorporate magnetostrictive actuators into microelectromechanical systems devices, thin film magnetoelastic materials must have both a high magnetostriction and a low saturation field. This work focuses on the fabrication and characterization of (110) oriented epitaxial FeGa thin films grown epitaxtally on Cu on Si. The material in the bulk exhibits a large magnetostriction and in thin film form is here shown to be easily saturated in all in-plane orientations in fields under 500 Oe. Thin (less than 160 nm) FeGa films grow according to a single (110) variant on Cu(100)/Si(100). On the contrary, thick (160 nm) films exhibit multiple (110) variants.