Effects of post-deposition annealing on the structure and magnetization of PLD grown yttrium iron garnet films

We report on the recrystallization of 200 nm thick as-grown Yttrium Iron Garnet ( Y 3.4 Fe 4.6 O 12 ) films on the (111) face of gadolinium gallium garnet single crystals by post-deposition annealing. Epitaxial conversion of the as-grown microcrystalline yttrium iron garnet films was seen after annealing at 800 °C for more than 30 min both in ambient oxygen and in air. The as-grown oxygen annealed samples at 800 °C for 60 min crystallize epitaxially and show excellent figure-of-merit for saturation magnetization (MS = 3.3 μB/f.u., comparable to the bulk value) and coercivity (HC ∼ 1.1 Oe). The ambient air annealing at 800 °C with a very slow rate of cooling (2 °C/min) results in a double layer structure with a thicker unstrained epitaxial top layer having the MS and HC of 2.9 μB/f.u. and 0.12 Oe, respectively. The symmetric and asymmetric reciprocal space maps of both the samples reveal a locking of the in-plane lattice of the film to the in-plane lattice of the substrate, indicating a pseudomorphic growth. The residual stress calculated by the sin 2 ψ technique is compressive in nature. The lower layer in the air annealed sample is highly strained, whereas the top layer has negligible compressive stress. © 2017 Author(s).