Abstract
We have successfully grown epitaxial CoFe2O4 (CFO) thin film on SrTiO3 by metal organic chemical vapor deposition. In order to understand the surface structure and its correlation with magnetic properties, CFO thin films were deposited at a range of deposition temperatures. As the deposition temperature is decreased, a huge effect on film morphology and surface roughness is observed, resulting from a change in the size and density of the crystal nuclei. These changes to grain structure and surface roughness modify the energy landscape of the films and are major contributors to the change in magnetic properties as a function of deposition temperature: the direction of the easy axis is aligned in-plane at lower deposition temperatures and lower anisotropy between different directions is observed in the rough films grown at high temperature.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Article number | 043908 |
| Journal | Journal of Applied Physics |
| Volume | 107 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 2010 |
Funding
This work was mostly carried out by UChicago Argonne, LLC, Operator of Argonne National Laboratory. Argonne, a U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science Laboratory, is operated under Contract No. DE-AC02-06CH11357. Use of the Electron Microscopy Center of Argonne National Laboratory is gratefully acknowledged. This work made use of J. B. Cohen X-ray Diffraction Facility supported by the MRSEC program of the National Science Foundation (Contract No. DMR-0520513) at the Materials Research Center of Northwestern University. This material is based upon work supported by the Department of Energy under Award No. DE-FG02-07ER46444. DOE’s support does not constitute an endorsement by DOE of the views expressed in the article. The authors would like to thank John Pearson and Axel Hoffman for assistance with SQUID measurements and Jui-Ching Lin for XRR technical support.
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General Physics and Astronomy