Giant magnetostriction in annealed Co1−xFex thin-films

• DOI: 10.1038/ncomms1529
• Publication Date: 2011-11-01T16:41:43Z
• Authors: Dwight Hunter; Will Osborn; Ke Wang; Nataliya Kazantseva; Jason Hattrick-Si...; Richard Suchoski; Ryota Takahashi; Marcus L. Young; Apurva Mehta; Leonid A. Bendersky; Sam E. Lofland; Manfred Wuttig; Ichiro Takeuchi
• Keywords: Phase boundary; Saturation (graph theory)

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