Crystal growth of antimony substituted cobalt ferrites thin films deposited by electron beam

A series of antimony substituted cobalt ferrites (CoSb0.3Fe1.7O4) thin films have been deposited employing Electron Beam Deposition technique. The as deposited thin films have been post annealed at different temperature such as 200, 300, 400 and 500 °C. The structural, surface, magnetic and optical properties of as-deposited and post annealed thin films have been studied using X-ray diffractometer, Raman spectroscopy, and Atomic Force Microscope, Vibrating Sample Magnetometer, spectroscopy ellipsometry and UV-vis techniques respectively. The X-ray diffraction and Raman spectroscopy analysis have confirmed the growth of single phase cubic spinel structure in thin films after post annealing. It is observed that the roughness of the thin films decreases and magnetization increases as the annealing temperature increases but not exceeded to as-deposited film. As the post annealing temperature increases the band gap energy increases which shows that the density of defects decreases and structure turn towards crystalline state from amorphous.