Magnetic field annealing effects on self-oriented BiFeO3 thin films prepared by chemical solution deposition

Self-oriented BiFeO3 (BFO) thin films are prepared via chemical solution deposition method with magnetic field in-situ annealing process. The effects of magnetic annealing on the microstructure, magnetic and dielectric properties as well as magnetoelectric coupling effect of the BFO thin films are investigated. With increasing the annealing magnetic field, the crystallization quality, texture, grain boundary connectivity and densification of the films are enhanced, which is attributed to the improvement of connection and diffusion of components. The magnetization of the field-annealing films and dielectric constant as well as remanent polarization increases with increasing the strength of annealing magnetic field. In addition, it is observed that magnetocapacitance value of the magnetic-field-annealing BFO thin film is higher than the non-field-annealing one. Moreover the BFO thin films annealed at 3 kOe magnetic field show the magnetoelectric effect with 4% under 2 kOe at room temperature.