Magnetic and structural properties of MnRh thin films

A systematic study of magnetic and structural properties of MnRh thin films fabricated onto MgO substrates and amorphous SiO2 has been conducted. All the MnRh thin films thus fabricated are found to be of the CsCl type structure, and exhibit the ferromagnetism at room temperature. The coercivity of about 1.1 kOe was observed at 5 K for films grown onto SiO2 substrates, while coercivity measured at 300 K in all the films were less than 200 Oe. The temperature dependence of magnetization shows thermal hysteresis for all the samples ranging from 150 K to 250 K that varies with the substrates used. The maximum of exchange bias field of 270 Oe and unidirectional magnetic anisotropy constant of 0.35 erg/cm2 at 5K was observed for films grown onto SiO2 substrates better than that observed for the films grown onto MgO substrates. This enhanced exchange bias and unidirectional magnetic anisotropy constant in film grown onto SiO2 is attributed to the strong lattice distortion in such a case.