Recovery of the chemical ordering in L1 MnAl epitaxial thin films irradiated by 2 MeV protons

Abstract

Epitaxial MnAl films with a high chemical ordering were synthesized and characterized during a series of irradiations by 2 MeV protons (H+). The chemical ordering was first reduced to a minimum at a total fluence (TF) of 1 × 1015 H+/cm2, and consequently was recovered at the final total fluence of 2 × 1015 H+/cm2. We attributed the recovery of chemical ordering to thermal effects and the enhanced diffusion caused by the high energy protons. In addition, the damages by the protons have little effect on the magnetic scattering processing in MnAl characterized by the anomalous Hall effect.