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What is the speed limit of martensitic transformations?
Structural martensitic transformations enable various applications, which range from high stroke actuation and sensing to energy efficient magnetocaloric refrigeration and thermomagnetic energy harvesting. All these emerging applications benefit from a fast transformation, but up to now their speed limit has not been explored. Here, we demonstrate that a thermoelastic martensite to austenite transformation can be completed within 10 ns. We heat epitaxial Ni-Mn-Ga films with a nanosecond laser pulse and use synchrotron diffraction to probe the influence of initial temperature and overheating on transformation rate and ratio. We demonstrate that an increase in thermal energy drives this transformation faster. Though the observed speed limit of 2.5 × 1027 (Js)1 per unit cell leaves plenty of room for further acceleration of applications, our analysis reveals that the practical limit will be the energy required for switching. Thus, martensitic transformations obey similar speed limits as in microelectronics, as expressed by the Margolus–Levitin theorem.
Growth and martensitic transformation of ferromagnetic Co-Cr-Ga-Si epitaxial films
During cooling, conventional martensitic transformation can only be realized from austenite to martensite. Recently, a so-called reentrant martensitic transformation attracted much interest due to an additional transformation from martensite to austenite during further cooling. Obviously, materials with this reentrant transformation will increase the number of physical effects and possible applications. However, until now, only bulk samples have been available, which are not suitable for applications in micro-devices. In this work, we focus on the Co-Cr-Ga-Si system and examine the suitability of this system for the growth of thin films. We observed that the films grow epitaxially on MgO (100) substrates and exhibit a martensitic transformation if deposited at a sufficiently high temperature or with an additional heat treatment. Films within the austenite state are ferromagnetic while films within the martensitic state just exhibit a very low ferromagnetic order.