Magnetic and transport properties of Zn0.4Fe2.6O4 thin films with highly preferential orientation

Highly preferentially oriented Zn0.4Fe2.6O4 thin films have been fabricated on Si, SrTiO3 and ZrO2 substrates, respectively, using RF magnetron sputtering. All the films show a large saturation magnetization of about 4.2μB and low coercive field at 300 K and a spin (cluster) glass transition at about 60 K due to the non-magnetic Zn2+ ions substitution. Moreover, the fairly high spin polarization of the carrier at 300 K has been confirmed by both the giant magnetoresistance and anomalous Hall coefficient measurements.