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Heusler-type magnetic shape memory alloys (MSMAs) exhibit a martensitic transformation (MT) accompanied by a complex magnetic reordering, strongly affected by an intricate martensitic microstructure. The hierarchic twin structure of martensite, formed as a result of minimization of elastic energy down to atomic scale, is under intensive study nowadays. On the other hand, the much more sophisticated problem of the relationship between nanoscale twin structure and the magnetism in MSMAs has being tackled only recently. It will be shown in this topical review that the nanotwin structure affects not only the basic magnetic parameters of MSMAs, but also can change qualitatively its magnetic nature and related magnetodynamic and magnetoresistance properties. This will be primarily illustrated, both theoretically and experimentally, on the prototype Ni-Mn-Ga and Ni(Co)-Mn-Sn MSMAs in the form of epitaxial thin films, but the conclusions are also valid for other Heusler-type MSMAs, both in the form of thin films, ribbons and bulk single crystals and polycrystals. The following new and remarkable phenomena will be highlighted. (i) A strong ferromagnetic exchange coupling is observed between the submicron twin components in Ni-Mn-Ga ferromagnetic martensite. It results in the modification of the average magnetic anisotropy and the formation of a non-collinear magnetic structure, whereby a negative magnetoresistance appears in a wide temperature range. (ii) Weak antiferromagnetic coupling occurs between the ferromagnetically ordered twin components in Ni(Co)-Mn-Sn martensite. This coupling enabled to explain the exchange bias and magnetic resonance spectra in the same terms as for artificial antiferromagnetically coupled multilayered structures.

Recently a new type of magnonic crystal — Ni 80 Fe 20 films deposited on top of periodic 2-D arrays of Ni 80 Fe 20 submicron circular disks — was proposed [1]. In such structures the continuous film can be considered as a magnonic waveguide, when the role of dot array is to create periodic perturbations of internal fields in the neighbor regions of the film. Here we study how the change of two parameters — inter-disk distances and the thickness of the film on top of the array will affect the in-plane anisotropy of the system.

Ferromagnetic resonance was used to study the influence of temperature and film thickness on magnetic properties of Ni–Mn–Ga films deposited on single crystal MgO(001) substrates. It has been shown that depending on the film thickness and preparation condition, three configurations of magnetic anisotropy can be realized in these films. The temperature dependence of the anisotropy field is determined.

2-D modulated structures consisting of square arrays of 60 nm thick Ni80Fe20 circular dots underneath a continuous Ni80Fe20 film were fabricated using deep ultraviolet lithography. The array pitch for all the samples was fixed at 620 nm, while the dot diameter varied from 300 nm to 550 nm. Four-fold in-plane magnetic anisotropy (FFA) was detected in the samples using ferromagnetic resonance technique. It was found that the deposition of continuous film on top of the array drastically increases the FFA of the system, with a maximum anisotropy field of 120 Oe being observed for the sample with intermediate diameter. This increase is due to the appearance of a field well in the film underneath the dots with a shape that is dependent on magnetic field orientation and to the coupling of magnetization oscillations in dots and film.

Ni-Mn-Ga ferromagnetic shape memory films with similar thickness and chemical composition, deposited onto cold (with a subsequent annealing) and hot MgO(001) substrates exhibit different internal stress and structure giving rise to a different orientation of the magnetic easy axes. A quantitative theoretical analysis of the crystallographic and ferromagnetic resonance (FMR) data shows that the different anisotropies can be caused by the difference in sign between the transformation volume changes in these films, as influenced by the internal stresses. To explain FMR data, the magnetoelastic coupling term of fourth-order in the magnetic vector and linear in the strain tensor components, appearing in the Landau expansion for the free energy, is taken into account. The coefficient of the term, which couples the magnetic vector components with the volume change of the Ni-Mn-Ga alloy, was estimated to be equal to about 107 erg cm−3.

By the ferromagnetic resonance and magnetometry measurements in a broad temperature range, it is found that the 220-fiber textured Ni51.4Mn28.3Ga20.3 (at. %) film of 100 nm thickness deposited onto NaCl(001) exhibits in the martensitic state an easy-plane magnetic anisotropy. This is in a drastic difference with the identical film of the same texture deposited onto Si(001) wafer showing out-of-plane oblique type of anisotropy [Golub et al., J. Appl. Phys. 105, 07A942 (2009)]. The results are discussed in terms of the different martensitic variant selections and stress-induced magnetic anisotropy contributions having opposite signs.