Abstract

Layered cobalt oxides Ca3Co4O9 thin films have been grown directly on c-cut sapphire substrates using pulsed laser deposition. X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy characterizations show that the deposited films present the expected monoclinic structure and a texture along the direction perpendicular to the Al2O3(001) plane. The Ca3Co4O9 structure presents six variants in the film plane. Rutherford backscattering spectroscopy shows that the films are stoichiometric and that the film thickness agrees with the nominal value. The susceptibility χ of the films, recorded along the c-axis of the substrate, after field cooling and zero field cooling in an applied field of 1 kOe shows two magnetic transitions at 19 and 370 K which agree well with previous findings on single crystal samples. In turn, at low temperature (5 K), the magnetization curve along the c-axis exhibits coercive field and remanent magnetization much smaller than those reported for bulk samples, which can be related to the influence of structural variants and structural defects.

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