Low-temperature growth of NiMnSb thin films by pulsed-laser deposition

Abstract

We report the growth of thin films of the ferromagnetic half-Heusler alloy NiMnSb by pulsed-laser deposition on Si (111) and polycrystalline InAs substrates. Highly crystalline films are grown using low substrate temperatures (190–210 °C), without any postdeposition annealing. The structural, magnetic, and transport properties of the films are relatively consistent with those of the bulk NiMnSb used as target, which suggests that thin layers of this material grown by laser ablation could be used in multilayer structures as effective spin-polarized conducting layers.