Abstract
Epitaxial magnetite thin films with (100), (110) and (111) orientation have been deposited by Laser ablation onto substrates with [NaCl] and [Spinel] structure. X-ray diffraction revealed pseudomorphic growth for (100) and (111) oriented films on MgO (100) and ZnFe 2 O 4 (111) respectively, whereas films on MgAl 2 O 4 showed a high degree of relaxation. For films on MgAl 2 O 4 and ZnFe 2 O 4 a significant enhancement of the Verwey-transition temperature compared to bulk material has been observed. The influence of stress on the magnetic anisotropy has been investigated by torque-magnetometry on (110) oriented films. Both films on MgO and spinel show an [110] in plane easy axis, which can be explained by (tensile) stresses in the case of MgO but not in the case of spinel. CEMS pattern indicate out of plane components of the magnetisation for all films. We suggest cation antiphase boundaries, observed by TEM to be responsible for this effect, limiting the magnetic coherence length and thus reducing shape anisotropy.
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