Fabrication and magnetic properties of Ce1Y2Fe5O12 thin films on GGG and SiO2/Si substrates

Microstructure and magnetic properties of crystalline Ce1Y2Fe5O12 thin films prepared on GGG and on SiO2/Si substrates by pulsed laser deposition were studied. The results show that highly textured Ce1Y2Fe5O12 film with (4 4 4) preferred orientation prepared on GGG (1 1 1) shows strong paramagnetism superimposed by a weak ferromagnetism. However, polycrystalline Ce1Y2Fe5O12 thin films on SiO2/Si, which can only be obtained after post-annealing, show strong ferromagnetism with easy axis of magnetization lying in the plane of the film. With post-annealing temperature increasing, CeO2 segregates from Ce1Y2Fe5O12; then YIG continues to be decomposed, forming Fe2O3. Consequently, the saturation magnetization of Ce1Y2Fe5O12 films decreases first and then increases correspondingly, which indicates that the magnetic properties of Ce1Y2Fe5O12 films are mainly related to the microstructure.