Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 September 2012
Measurements of the electrical resistivity and magnetoresistivity are reported for 100 nm buried α-FeSi2 in the temperature range 1.2 to 300 K, and in magnetic fields up to 5 Tesla.The metallic α-FeSi2 phase, formed by ion-beam synthesis and subsequent rapid-thermal annealing, is found to have a high residual resistivity of about 227 μΩ2 cm. Furthermore, a minimum in the electrical resistivity is found at 40 K. Combined with mnagnetore si stance measurements it is concluded that this minimum cannot be attributed to the Kondo effect, but is caused by weak localisation and spin-orbit interaction due to the very strong elastic scattering in the material. From the magnetoresistance measurements, at temperatures below 40 K, the relaxation times due to inelastic and spin-orbit scattering are deduced. The inelastic scattering rate is found to saturate below 4.2 K, and follow a T3 power law between 4.2 K to 40 K.