Study of non-magnetic iron mononitride thin films

Iron mononitride, FeN, is known to exist in different phases and there is a debate on the exact crystal type and the coexistence of these phases. We prepared single phase iron mononitride thin films by magnetron sputtering with various deposition rates (sputtering power) and investigated them with X-ray diffraction, neutron reflectometry and low temperature and high magnetic field Moessbauer spectroscopy. It was observed that with an increase in the sputtering power a more disordered structure is formed while the local chemical environment of iron remains unaffected. The low temperature and high magnetic field Moessbauer spectroscopy measurements confirmed that the FeN phase is paramagnetic at 5 K and an applied magnetic field of 5 T reflects magnetic splitting caused by the applied field. The obtained results are discussed in this study.