Structure characterization and magnetic properties of barium hexaferrite films deposited on 6H-SiC with random in-plane orientation

Oriented barium hexaferrite films grown on wide band-gap semiconductor substrates (such as SiC) are promising candidates for high-power microwave integrated devices. In this work, BaFe12O19 (BaM) films with c-axis randomly distributed in the film plane were prepared by direct current magnetron sputtering on a-plane 6H-SiC substrates. An insight into the orientation relationship and the epitaxial-like growth mechanism demonstrates that (112¯0) planes of BaM have been grown on (112¯0) 6H-SiC substrates. The random alignment of [0001] axis within the film plane was revealed by X-ray diffractions, X-ray pole figures, polarized Raman spectra and magnetic hysteresis loops. The BaM films on 6H-SiC substrates exhibited a large remanence ratio, Mr/Ms, of about 0.64 along in-plane axis and a relatively small one of ~0.2 for the out-of-plane hard axis, showing the potential of application in self-biased microwave devises.