CoPt alloy grown on the WSe2(0001) van der Waals surface

The structural and magnetic properties of 3-nm-thick CoPt alloys grown on WSe2(0001) at various temperature are investigated. Deposition at room temperature leads to the formation of a chemically disordered fcc CoPt alloy with [111] orientation. Growth at elevated temperatures induces L1(0) chemical order starting at 470 K accompanied with an increase in grain size and a change in grain morphology. As a consequence of the [111] growth direction, the CoPt grains can adopt one of the three possible variants of the L10 phase with tetragonal c-axis tilted from the normal to the film plane direction at 54 degrees. The average long-range order parameter is found to be 0.35(70.05) and does not change with the increase in the deposition temperature from 570 to 730 K. This behavior might be related to Se segregation towards the growing facets and surface disorder effects promoted by a high surface-to-volume ratio. Magnetic studies reveal a superparamagnetic behavior for the films grown at 570 and 730K in agreement with the film morphology and degree of chemical order. The measurements at 10 K reveal the orientation of the easy axis of the magnetization lying basically in the film plane. (c) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.