Investigation of rock-salt CrTe thin film grown by molecular beam epitaxy toward half-metal

Abstract

We report the growth of rock-salt CrTe thin film on MgO substrate by molecular-beam epitaxy (MBE). Our high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) results show that a metastable rock-salt (RS) CrTe film can be achieved in a crystalline phase with thickness of 50 nm. The temperature dependence of remanent magnetization shows two ferromagnetic transition temperatures at 165 K and > 400 K. The occurrence of two transition temperatures is probably due to the existence of multi-axial anisotropy in RS CrTe. A new magnetic phase of CrTe is confirmed to exist in the sample by studying the hysteresis loop at 400 K. (keywords: CrTe, rock salt, half metal) © 2013 IEEE.