Kumar, S Vinodh and Singh, R K and Raja, M Manivel and Kumar, A and Bysakh, Sandip and Mahendran, M (2016) Microstructure and nanomechanical properties of Mn-rich Ni-Mn-Ga thin films. Intermetallics, 71. pp. 57-64. ISSN 0966-9795

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Abstract

We report the effect of post-annealing on the crystalline phase, grain growth, magnetic and mechanical properties of Ni-Mn-Ga thin films deposited at room temperature followed by post-annealing at different temperatures. The phase and microstructural analysis reveal that amorphous to crystalline transformation occurs in as-deposited films after post-annealing above 873 K. The transformation of disordered phase into nanocrystalline phase by the influence of annealing has been confirmed by transmission electron microscopy. The crystalline films exhibit soft magnetic behavior with the Curie temperature of 314 K, while the amorphous films exhibit the Pauli-paramagnetic behavior even down to 4 K. The mechanical properties like hardness and elastic modulus of the films also show a strong dependence on the annealing temperature with crystalline film exhibiting maximum values of 6 GPa and 103 GPa, respectively. The Ni-Mn-Ga film annealed at 873 K exhibits enhanced nanomechanical properties and room temperature ferromagnetism which make this a potential candidate for use in MEMS devices. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Item Type:	Article
Subjects:	Engineering Materials
Divisions:	UNSPECIFIED
Depositing User:	Bidhan Chaudhuri
Date Deposited:	08 Nov 2016 11:00
Last Modified:	08 Nov 2016 11:00
URI:	http://cgcri.csircentral.net/id/eprint/3677

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