Ultrafast signatures of magnetic inhomogeneity in Pd Fe ( ≤ 0.08) epitaxial thin films.

A series of Pd Fe alloy epitaxial films ( = 0, 0.038, 0.062, and 0.

Controllable two- and three-state magnetization switching in single-layer epitaxial Pd Fe films and an epitaxial PdFe/Ag/PdFe heterostructure.

We have investigated the low-temperature magnetoresistive properties of a thin epitaxial PdFe film at different directions of the current and the applied magnetic field. The obtained experimental results are well described within an assumption of a single-domain magnetic state of the film. In a wide range of the appled field directions, the magnetization reversal proceeds in two steps via the intermediate easy axis.

Epitaxial growth and superconducting properties of thin-film PdFe/VN and VN/PdFe bilayers on MgO(001) substrates.

Single-layer vanadium nitride (VN) and bilayer PdFe/VN and VN/PdFe thin-film heterostructures for possible spintronics applications were synthesized on (001)-oriented single-crystalline magnesium oxide (MgO) substrates utilizing a four-chamber ultrahigh vacuum deposition and analysis system. The VN layers were reactively magnetron sputtered from a metallic vanadium target in Ar/N plasma, while the Pd Fe layers were deposited by co-evaporation of metallic Pd and Fe pellets from calibrated effusion cells in a molecular beam epitaxy chamber. The VN stoichiometry and Pd Fe composition were controlled by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy.