Growth of epitaxial SmCo5 films on Cr∕MgO(100)

Although the hard magnetic SmCo5 phase has very attractive and well-known intrinsic magnetic properties, it has not been grown as an epitaxial thin film, so far. This letter reports the epitaxial growth of SmCo5 films by pulsed-laser deposition on Cr(100) buffered MgO(100) single-crystal substrates. The phase purity, crystal structure, epitaxial relation to the substrate, and magnetic properties have been determined by careful energy-dispersive x-ray analysis, pole figure measurements, transmission electron microscopy, and vibrating sample magnetometry. Compared to the formerly studied Sm2Co7 films, the preparation of the SmCo5 phase improves the remanent magnetization by 38%.