Fabrication of Multiferroic Co-Substituted BiFeO₃ Epitaxial Films on SrTiO₃ (100) Substrates by Radio Frequency Magnetron Sputtering

Abstract: The 10 at.% Co-substituted BiFeO₃ films (of thickness 50 nm) were successfully prepared by radio frequency (r.f.) magnetron sputtering on SrTiO₃ (100) substrates with epitaxial relationships of [001](001)Co-BiFeO₃//[001](001)SrTiO₃. In this study, a single phase Co-substituted BiFeO₃ epitaxial film was fabricated by r.f. magnetron sputtering. Sputtering conditions such as Ar, O₂ gas pressure, annealing temperature, annealing atmosphere, and sputtering power were systematically changed. It was observed that a low Ar gas pressure and low sputtering power is necessary to suppress the formation of the secondary phases of BiO_x. The Co-substituted BiFeO₃ films were crystalized with post-annealing at 600 °C in air. The process window for single phase films is narrower than that for pure BiFeO₃ epitaxial films. By substituting Fe with Co in BiFeO₃, the magnetization at room temperature increased to 20 emu/cm³. This result suggests that Co-substituted BiFeO₃ films can be used in spin-filter devices.