Metallurgical phases and their magnetism at the interface of nanoscale MgB2/Fe layered structures

We report on the characterization of metallurgical phases and their magnetism at the interfaces of nanoscale MgB2/Fe layered structures. MgB2/57Fe multilayers with varying layer thicknesses were prepared by vacuum deposition and investigated, before and after annealing by electrical resistance measurements, x-ray diffraction and 57Fe conversion-electron Mössbauer spectroscopy (CEMS) down to 5 K. Interfacial Fe-B phases, such as Fe2B, were identified by CEMS. A superparamagnetic-to-ferromagnetic transition is observed with increasing 57Fe film thickness. Ultrahigh vacuum annealing at 500 °C of the multilayers leads to strong diffusion of Fe atoms into the boundary regions of the MgB2 layers. MgB2 in the as-grown multilayers is non-superconducting. Structural disorder and the effect of Fe interdiffusion contribute to the suppression of superconductivity in the MgB2 films of all the as-grown multilayers and the thinner annealed multilayers. However, an annealed MgB2/57Fe/MgB2 trilayer with thicker (500 Å) MgB2 layers is observed to be superconducting with an onset temperature of 25 K. At 5 K, the annealed trilayer can be conceived as being strongly chemically modulated, consisting of two partially Fe-doped superconducting MgB2 layers separated by an interdiffused weakly magnetic Fe-B interlayer, which is characterized by a low hyperfine magnetic field Bhf of ∼11 T. This chemically modulated layer structure of the trilayer after annealing was verified by Rutherford backscattering. (paper)