Variations in perpendicular magnetic and electrical transport properties of ferrimagnetic (0 0 1) NiCo2O4 films

Abstract

We fabricated epitaxial NiCo2O4 films on (001) MgAl2O4 substrates by varying the pulsed-laser energy density from 1.31 to 2.46 J/cm2, while keeping all other parameters fixed. X-ray diffraction measurements revealed that the increase in energy density increased the film deposition rate from 0.022 to 0.078 nm/s, while resulting in the decrease of the full-width at half-maximum of the rocking curve and out-of-plane lattice constant. At room temperature, the films grown at an intermediate energy density range of 1.97–2.13 J/cm2 exhibited more distinctive perpendicular magnetic anisotropy and magnetic domain structure compared to those grown at high or low energy densities. On the other hand, the lower the laser energy density, the more pronounced the perpendicular magnetic anisotropy becomes at low temperatures. In addition, the ferrimagnetic-to-paramagnetic transition temperature of the film increased with the energy density, reaching a maximum of approximately 390 K at energy densities above 2.13 J/cm2. Furthermore, temperature-dependent resistivity indicated that the metallic behavior in the films grown above 2.13 J/cm2 was retained up to ∼ 500 K, which is much higher than the ferrimagnetic transition temperature. These results suggest that pulsed-laser energy density can serve as an alternative parameter for controlling the perpendicular magnetic properties and enhancing the metallic behavior of the (001) NiCo2O4 film.