Iron nitrides on semi-insulated GaN film

Fe-N film on semi-insulated GaN is fabricated through nitridation of Fe film. There coexist a variety of phases of iron nitrides in the film, which are confirmed by structure analysis and surface morphology. It is found that the sample exhibits room-temperature ferromagnetism and its Curie temperature should be lower than that of Fe film. Finally, the electrical measurement shows that the film is a conductor, whose resistivity is about 2.2 times higher than that of Fe film. This work indicates that the present method can be used to fabricate iron nitrides with discretional ratio of Fe:N (more than 1) on GaN (0001) template, which is a fascinating topic of iron nitrides in the future.