Sample Construction

All of the samples studied in this chapter have been prepared using Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE) by Dr R.C.C. Ward and Dr M.R. Wells, Clarendon Laboratory, Oxford University. An outgassed $\left( 11\bar{2}0 \right)$ sapphire substrate is placed into an MBE chamber at $4\times10^{-11}\ensuremath{\unskip\,\mathrm{Torr}}$ and 500Å of Niobium is deposited as a buffer. A thin Fe seed layer of 15Å is then deposited followed by an 800Å YFe$_{2}$ seed layer. This provides basis for growth of good quality films and multilayers.

Figure 6.2: Schematic of the Laves Phase sample construction.

The sample growth direction is (110), perpendicular to the plane of the sample. A generic schematic of the samples is shown in Figure 6.2.