Strain engineering for controlled growth of thin-film FeNi L10

FeNi thin films in the L1(0) phase were successfully grown by magnetron sputtering on HF-etched Si(001) substrates on Cu/Cu100-xNix buffers. The strain of the FeNi layer, (c/a)(FeNi), was varied in a controlled manner by changing the Ni content of the Cu100-xNix buffer layer from x = 0 at.% to x = 90 at.%, which influenced the common in- plane lattice parameter of the CuNi and FeNi layers. The presence of the L1(0) phase was confirmed by resonant x-ray diffraction measurements at various positions in reciprocal space. The uniaxial magnetocrystalline anisotropy energy K-U is observed to be smaller (around 0.35 MJ m(-3)) than predicted for a perfect FeNi L1(0) sample, but it is larger than for previously studied films. No notable variation in K-U with strain state (c/a)(FeNi) is observed in the range achieved (0.99 less than or similar to (c/a)(FeNi) less than or similar to 1.02), which is in agreement with theoretical predictions.