Effect of processing parameters on the structural, electrical and magnetic properties of BFO thin film synthesized via RF magnetron sputtering

•Dense and crack-free BFO thin films with a perovskite structure are prepared by RF sputtering.•With decrease of O2/Ar ratio, BFO thin film shows a denser structure with single phase.•The annealing temperature influences the ferroelectric and leakage properties.

Pure-phase perovskite BiFeO3 thin films were successfully deposited on the Pt substrates via radio frequency magnetron sputtering. The effect of O2/Ar ratio on the microstructure of BFO thin film was firstly investigated. The result shows that when O2/Ar ratio is 1:10, the BFO thin film exhibits a single perovskite phase with a dense structure. The effect of annealing temperature on the microstructure, ferroelectric, dielectric and magnetic properties of obtained thin film was subsequently investigated. The XRD result indicates that impurity phases appear whenever the annealing temperature is increased or decreased. Compared with other annealing temperatures, the BFO thin film annealed at 600 °C exhibits higher remnant polarization 2Pr of 23.26 μC/cm2, relatively larger coercive electric filed 2Ec of 563 kV/cm, higher dielectric constant of 150, lower dielectric loss of 0.03, lower leakage current density of 3.6 × 10−4 A/cm2, and saturation magnetization of 0.0036 emu/cm3. Our results provide useful information with preparing single and pure BFO thin films prepared by radio frequency magnetron sputtering to some extent.