Sputter deposition of cerium yttrium iron garnet films on substrates with ion-beam bombarded patterns

We report the experimental results of magnetooptic rare-earth iron-garnet sputtered film deposition on-substrates with a modified surface. The magnetooptic garnet considered here is cerium-substituted yttrium iron garnet which is one of the promising materials for nonreciprocal optical devices and magnetooptic recording media. The surface of the substrate, gadolinium gallium garnet, is etched by ion-beam bombardment, whose energy was controllable from 0.2 keV to I keV. By varying the ion-beam energy, the deposited films can be in either the crystalline or the amorphous state and the quality of grown crystalline films can be improved. The results obtained are explained in terms of the surface morphology of substrates.