A Mössbauer effect and X-ray diffraction study of Fe–Ga–Al thin films prepared by combinatorial sputtering

A combinatorial thin film library of the composition Fe100−yGay−xAlx was prepared by magnetron sputtering. The composition was determined by electron microprobe and showed that the Fe content was reasonably constant across the library and the Al to Ga ratio varied linearly with position. The crystallographic structure was determined with X-ray diffraction and found to be bcc. 57Fe Mössbauer spectroscopy was used to investigate short-range order within the film. It was shown that non-magnetic atoms tend to cluster in these alloys, but that the substitution of Al for Ga reduced this tendency. This behavior may be, at least partially, responsible for the decrease in saturation magnetostriction between Fe–Ga and Fe–Al alloys.