Films grown by laser ablation on Si(100) and GaAs(100) substrates with and without MgO buffer layers

Abstract

films have been grown by laser ablation on (100) oriented Si and GaAs substrates. Optimal growth of was obtained at a substrate temperature of 450C in a molecular oxygen atmosphere of Torr. X-ray measurements show these films to be (111) oriented, with the growth direction random in the plane of the film. The introduction of (100) oriented, epitaxial MgO buffer layers as thin as 10 Å on the substrates results in the growth of (100) oriented, epitaxial films. X-ray pole-figure measurements on these films indicate that both the and the MgO films are oriented cube on cube on the Si and GaAs substrates, namely . Room-temperature magnetization measurements of the (111) oriented films show that there is good agreement between the magnetic properties of the films grown on Si and on the GaAs substrates. Similar agreement is found for the magnetization measurements of the (100) oriented epitaxial films grown with a MgO buffer layer. Moreover, the hysteresis loops for the (111) and (100) oriented films are very similar, indicating that the epitaxy has not significantly improved the magnetic properties of the . In fact, a small decrease of the high-field magnetization is observed with increasing MgO film thickness.