Argon assisted chemical vapor deposition of CrO2: An efficient process leading to high quality epitaxial films

•Argon-assisted atmospheric pressure CVD of high quality epitaxial CrO2 thin films.•Using Ar rather than O2 carrier gas is not a limitation for the growth of CrO2 epilayers.•Films’ coercivity is independent of the background gas (O2 or Ar).•Films’ coercivity affected by the edge roughness of the CrO2 building structures.

A comparative study of the structural, microstructural and magnetic properties of CrO2 thin films grown onto (110) and (100) TiO2 rutile single crystal substrates by chemical vapor deposition (CVD), using CrO3 as chromium precursor and either oxygen or argon as carrier gas is presented. Our results show that growth under argon carrier gas leads to high quality CrO2 epilayers with structural and magnetic properties similar to those obtained using the more standard oxygen carrier gas. Furthermore, we interpret the larger magnetic coercivity observed for the (110) oriented films in terms of their microstructure, in particular of the highest strain and edge roughness of the building structures of the CrO2 epilayers, which are settled by the substrate crystallographic orientation.

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