Size dependence of martensite transformation temperature in nanostructured Ni–Mn–Sn ferromagnetic shape memory alloy thin films

In the present study, we report the influence of grain size on structural and phase transformation behaviour of nanostructured Ni–Mn–Sn ferromagnetic shape memory alloy thin films synthesized by dc magnetron sputtering. With increase in substrate temperature, the structural phase changes from austenite with L21 cubic crystal structure to martensite with monoclinic structure. In addition, field-induced martensite–austenite transformation is observed in magnetization studies using superconducting quantum interference device magnetometer. The martensitic transformation behaviour of these films depends critically on the microstructure and dimensional constraint. Both, the martensite start temperature (Ms) and austenite finish temperature (Af) of these nanostructured films decreases with decreasing grain size. The excess free volume associated with grain boundaries has been observed to increase with decrease in grain size which in turn leads to an increase in the number of grain boundaries. It has been proposed that the grain boundaries impose constraints on the growth of the martensite and confine the transformed volume fraction in nanocrystalline structure. A martensite phase nucleated within a grain will be stopped at the grain boundaries acting as obstacles for martensite growth. The investigations revealed that below a critical grain size of 10.8 nm, the austenite phase is observed to be more stable than the martensite phase which leads to the complete suppression of martensitic transformation in these films.