Giant magnetostriction in annealed Co1−xFex thin-films

• Published in: Nature communications 2011-11, Vol.2 (1), p.518, Article 518
• Main Authors: Hunter, Dwight, Osborn, Will, Wang, Ke, Kazantseva, Nataliya, Hattrick-Simpers, Jason, Suchoski, Richard, Takahashi, Ryota, Young, Marcus L., Mehta, Apurva, Bendersky, Leonid A., Lofland, Sam E., Wuttig, Manfred, Takeuchi, Ichiro
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 639/301/119/544; 639/301/119/997; Humanities and Social Sciences; multidisciplinary; Science; Science (multidisciplinary)
• ISSN: 2041-1723; 2041-1723
• DOI: 10.1038/ncomms1529

Chemical and structural heterogeneity and the resulting interaction of coexisting phases can lead to extraordinary behaviours in oxides, as observed in piezoelectric materials at morphotropic phase boundaries and relaxor ferroelectrics. However, such phenomena are rare in metallic alloys. Here we show that, by tuning the presence of structural heterogeneity in textured Co 1−x Fe x thin films, effective magnetostriction λ eff as large as 260 p.p.m. can be achieved at low-saturation field of ~10 mT. Assuming λ 100 is the dominant component, this number translates to an upper limit of magnetostriction of λ 100 ≈5 λ eff >1,000 p.p.m. Microstructural analyses of Co 1−x Fe x films indicate that maximal magnetostriction occurs at compositions near the (fcc+bcc)/bcc phase boundary and originates from precipitation of an equilibrium Co-rich fcc phase embedded in a Fe-rich bcc matrix. The results indicate that the recently proposed heterogeneous magnetostriction mechanism can be used to guide exploration of compounds with unusual magnetoelastic properties. Magnetostriction—the property that causes ferromagnetic materials to change shape during the process of magnetization—has a range of technological applications. Here, by varying the presence of structural disorder in textured Co 1-x Fe x films, unusually strong magnetostrictive properties are presented.