Structural and magnetic properties of ZnFe2O4 films deposited by low sputtering power

Abstract

To validate the correctness of the Hartman-Perdok Theory (HPT), which indicates that the {111} planes have the lowest surface energy in spinel ferrites, the {111} plane orientated ZnFe2O4 thin films on Si(100), Si(111), and SiO2(500 nm)/Si(111) substrates were obtained through a radio frequency (RF) magnetron sputtering method with a low sputtering power of 80 W. All of the experiments prove that the atom energy determined by sputtering power plays an important role in the orientated growth of the ZnFe2O4 thin films, and it matches well with HPT. The ZnFe2O4 thin films exhibit ferromagnetism with a magnetization of 84.25 kJ/mol at room temperature, which is different from the bulk counterpart (antiferromagnetic as usual). The ZnFe2O4 thin films can be used as high-quality oriented inducing buffer layers for other spinel (Ni, Mn)Zn ferrite thin films and may have high potential in magnetic thin films-based devices.