Preparation of Er(Co,Cu) 5 Alloy Thin Films on Cr(211) Underlayer

Er 17 (Co 1− x Cu x ) 83 (at. %, $x = 0-1$ ) alloy thin films are prepared at 500 °C by employing Cr(211) underlayers hetero-epitaxially grown on MgO(110) substrates. Crystallographic phase formation is influenced by the Cu/Co composition. Amorphous film is formed for $x = 0$ , whereas epitaxial films are obtained for $x = 0.25-1$ . Cu atom addition into Er–Co film promotes crystallization. The films with $x = 0.25-0.5$ consist of a mixture of Er(Co,Cu) 5 $(1\bar {1}00)$ and Er(Co,Cu) 5 (0001) crystals. The crystallographic orientation relationships are Er(Co,Cu) 5 $(1\bar {1}00)[\bar {1}\bar {1}20]~\vert \vert $ Cr(211) $[\bar {1}11], (211)[1\bar {1}\bar {1}]$ and Er(Co,Cu) 5 $(0001)[\bar {1}\bar {1}20]~\vert \vert ~\text {Cr}(211)[\bar {1}11], (211)[1\bar {1}\bar {1}]$ . However, with further increasing $x$ value, the crystallographic phase changes to a phase different from Er(Co,Cu) 5 . Control of the amount of Cu atom is important to stabilize the Er(Co,Cu) 5 phase.