The effect of antimony in magneto-optic thin films on manganese bismuth base. I. Film preparation and studies on the formation process

By adding antimony the system MnBi is extended to a three-component one. Using Sb concentrations not exceeding a critical value one gets facilitated conditions for preparation of magneto-optic thin films of the B8 structure with preferred orientations of the c-axis. Thereby a number of advantages could be obtained, compared with “pure” manganese bismuth films, e.g. relatively low formation temperatures and short formation times (in the order of 200 °C and 1 h, respectively), excellent film homogeneity, use of amorphous substrates instead of epitaxial materials. Films with surface protective layers of good quality show no significant difference whether the thermal formation of the vacuum-deposited three-layer-systems BiSbMn takes place in vacuum or in air. The effect of antimony additions to manganese bismuth has been demonstrated by observations chiefly obtained in a heat stage microscope. The results of these investigations are reported.