Preparation of metastable bcc permalloy epitaxial thin films on GaAs(011)B3 single-crystal substrates

Permalloy (Py) single-crystal films with bcc structure were obtained on GaAs(011)B3 single-crystal substrates by ultra high vacuum rf magnetron sputtering. The film growth and the detailed film structures were investigated by refection high energy electron diffraction and pole figure X-ray diffraction. bcc–Py films epitaxially grow on the substrates in the orientation relationship of Py(011)[011¯]bcc || GaAs(011)[011¯]B3. The lattice constant of bcc–Py film is determined to be a = 0.291 nm. With increasing the film thickness, parts of the bcc crystal transform into more stable fcc structure by atomic displacement parallel to the bcc{011} close-packed planes. The resulting film thus consists of a mixture of bcc and fcc crystals. The phase transformation mechanism is discussed based on the experimental results. The in-plane magnetization properties reflecting the magnetocrystalline anisotropy of bcc–Py crystal are observed for the Py films grown on GaAs(011)B3 substrates.