Magneto-optical, optical and magnetic properties of the Mn1-xFex alloy films

A set of Mn1-xFex alloy films with 0 < x < 1 has been prepared by face-to-face DC sputtering onto glass substrates kept at 293 K. The X-ray diffraction study reveals that an alpha-Fe phase with bcc-type of structure is the prevailing phase for the Mn1-xFex alloy films with 0.8 < x < 1, while gamma-Mn-Fe and alpha-Mn phases are dominant for 0.2 < x < 0.8 and x < 0.2, respectively. The experimental equatorial-Keff-effect spectra for Mn1-xFex alloy films, which are observed only for x > 0.5, have nearly the same spectral shape (Fe-like), and differ from each other only by the intensity. They are nicely reproduced in the framework of the effective medium approximation by using scaled off-diagonal components of the dielectric function for pure Fe film and measured optical constants for the corresponding alloys. The optical properties of all the investigated alloys can be separated into three groups which are related to different prevailing crystalline structures of alloys.