Effect of 200 MeV Ag12+ ion irradiations on structural, morphological and magnetic properties of HoFe1-xNixO3 (x=0.0, 0.1, 0.3 and 0.5) thin films grown on Si (100) substrates

Present investigation reports the effect of 200 MeV Ag12+ SHI on the structure, morphology and magnetic properties of HoFe1-xNixO3 (x = 0.0, 0.1, 0.3 and 0.5) thin films. The films were grown on silicon wafer using pulsed laser deposition technique. The pristine and irradiated thin films were investigated using X-ray diffraction (XRD), atomic force microscopy (AFM) and magnetic measurements. XRD analysis of pristine as well as irradiated thin films confirms orthorhombic structure. A decrease in average grain size was observed in the irradiated samples as estimated by XRD pattern. AFM shows that the root mean square of the roughness (RMS roughness) is decreasing with irradiation and is increasing with Ni doping concentration. The zero-field-cooled and field-cooled magnetization measurements for pristine and irradiated thin films were recorded in a field of 200 Oe and these exhibit a typical behavior of antiferromagnetic nature at low temperature and paramagnetic nature at high temperature. This is further supported by the magnetization hysteresis (M-H) curves taken at 60 K, for the pristine and irradiated thin films. Irradiated films have smaller grain size as compared to pristine samples, resulted in decreased Ms after irradiation. SHI irradiation results in substantial modification in the physical properties of as-prepared thin films.