Investigation of structural and magnetic properties of Ni, NiFe and NiFe2O4 thin films

► Explored structure and magnetic relative behavior of Ni, NiFe and NiFe2O4 films and mechanism of their nanocrystallization. ► Soft magnetic nature of films associated to crystallites nature and grain size of films. ► Magnetic properties are coupled with the ability to deposit films with reproducible magnetic properties by reactive magnetron sputtering. ► Reactive sputter deposition is a unique deposition technique where magnetic grain size can be easily controlled by regulation of reactive gas partial pressure in deposition. ► The mechanism has been discussed to be responsible for nanocrystallization and amorphization of NiFe2O4 films.