Analysis of High Coercivities in Pulsed Laser Deposited Epitaxial SmCo5 Thin Films

Thin films of SmCo₅ were epitaxially deposited on Cr\MgO(110) single crystal substrates. This epitaxial relation leading to a uni-axial SmCo₅ thin films is also seen in the hysteresis loop measured along three orthogonal directions. The hysteresis loops resemble ideal square shaped hysteresis along the (\\MgO[001]) axis with H_c = 3.1 T and no remanence or coercivity was observed perpendicular to the axis. Although the H_c is small compared to the 30 T anisotropy field of SmCo₅, it is still high on a relative scale and competitive to previous reports on epitaxial Sm₂Co₇ films. The performed analysis tries to explain these high H_c values.