Abstract:
The effects of the deposition temperature and laser energy on the characteristics of Co2MnAl films deposited on GaAs substrates were investigated. The grown films were characterized by AFM for film roughness and surface topography. Film thickness and elemental composition were measured using Rutherford Back Scattering (RBS) technique, while crystalline structure and phase composition were investigated by XRD. The RBS measurements showed that the stochiometry of the films was satisfactory and very close to that of the target Co: 0.5, Mn: 0.25, Al: 0.25. The thickness of the films was found to increase as the laser energy was increased from 200 to 400 mJ, in particular for the films deposited at 400 °C. We also found an increase in the films thicknesses as the deposition temperature was increased for the samples grown at 200 and 300 mJ. The best film quality as deduced from XRD, RBS and AFM results for producing these single layers were those deposited at 600 °C with the laser energy at 300 mJ. © Owned by the authors, published by EDP Sciences, 2014.