Fe-Ni composition dependence of magnetic anisotropy in artificially fabricated L1 0-ordered FeNi films.

We prepared L10-ordered FeNi alloy films by alternate deposition of Fe and Ni monatomic layers, and investigated their magnetic anisotropy. We employed a non-ferromagnetic Au-Cu-Ni buffer layer with a flat surface and good lattice matching to L10-FeNi. An L10-FeNi film grown on Au6Cu51Ni43 showed a large uniaxial magnetic anisotropy energy (Ku = 7.0 × 10(6) erg cm(-)3). Ku monotonically increased with the long-range order parameter (S) of the L10 phase. We investigated the Fe-Ni composition dependence by alternating the deposition of Fe 1 − x and Ni 1 + x monatomic layers (− 0.4 < x < 0.4). Saturation magnetization (Ms) and Ku showed maxima (Ms = 1470 emu cm(-3), Ku = 9.3 × 10(6) erg cm(-3)) for Fe60Ni40 (x = -0.2) while S showed a maximum at the stoichiometric composition (x = 0). The change in the ratio of lattice parameters (c/a) was small for all compositions. We found that enrichment of Fe is very effective to enhance Ku. The large Ms and Ku of Fe60Ni40 indicate that Fe-rich L10-FeNi is promising as a rare-earth-free permanent magnet.