Room temperature growth of ultrathin ordered MnGa films on a CoGa buffer layer

Tetragonal ultrathin (1-5 nm) ordered MnGa films on a CsCl-type CoGa buffer layer were fabricated by a sputtering method. The (001)-CoGa layer was first deposited on a Cr-buffered MgO substrate and then annealed in-situ at 500 °C. The ultrathin MnGa film deposited on the CoGa buffer layer formed the L1₀ structure with very small roughness even when grown at room temperature. In addition, the films showed well-squared perpendicular magnetization hysteresis curves even when the film thickness was as little as 1 nm. The obtained results are important for the development of the MnGa-based spin-transfer torque devices for Gbit class magnetic random access memory and high frequency applications.