Change in magnetic and structural properties of FeRh thin films by gold cluster ion beam irradiation with the energy of 1.67 MeV/atom

The effect of energetic cluster ion beam irradiation on magnetic and structural properties of FeRh thin films have been investigated. The cluster ions used in the present studies consist of a few gold atoms with the energy of 1.67 MeV/gold atom. Saturation magnetization of the sample irradiated with Au3 cluster ion beam (280 emu/cc) is larger than that for the irradiated sample with Au1 ion beam (240 emu/cc) for the same irradiation ion fluence. These results can also be confirmed by the X-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD) measurement; the XMCD signal for Au3 cluster ion irradiation is larger than that for Au1 ion irradiation. Since the ion beam irradiation induced magnetization of FeRh is significantly correlated with the amount of the lattice defects in the samples, cluster ion beam irradiation can be considered to effectively introduce the lattice defects in B2-type FeRh rather than the single ion beam. Consequently, cluster ion irradiation is better than single ion irradiation for the viewpoint of saturation magnetization, even if the same irradiation energy is deposited in the samples.