Anisotropy in the electrical resistivity of Ca-substituted yttrium iron garnet thin films

The existence of an in-plane anisotropy in the room-temperature electrical resistivity of an (011)-oriented liquid-phase-epitaxy-grown Ca-0.14:yttrium iron garnet (YIG) film has been observed. The resistivity determined along the [011] crystal direction was found to be consistently larger than that along the [100] direction by a factor of 1.47 +/- 0.07, which is within 4% of the square root of 2. These results suggest that charge conduction may in fact be occurring entirely along the easy (100) directions regardless of the crystal orientation of the applied electric field. The observed preference for a conduction path along the [100] direction is discussed in terms of linear chains of alternating {Y}-O-(Fe)-O-{Y} ions which are known to extend through the entire macroscopic length of the YIG crystal. (C) 1997 American Institute of Physics.