Magnetic and structural anisotropies of Co2FeAl Heusler alloy epitaxial thin films

Abstract: This paper shows the correlation between chemical order, lattice strains and magnetic properties of Heusler Co2FeAl films epitaxially grown on MgO(001). A detailed magnetic characterization has been performed using vector field magnetometery combined with numerical Stoner-Wohlfarth analysis. We demonstrate the presence of three types of in-plane anisotropies: one biaxial, as expected for the cubic symmetry, and other two uniaxial ones. The three anisotropies show different behavior with the annealing temperature. The biaxial anisotropy shows a monotonous increase. The uniaxial anisotropy, parallel with the hard biaxial axes, related to the chemical homogeneity, decreases, while the other, supposed to have magnetostatic origin, remains constant.