Epitaxial thin film growth of garnet-, GdFeO3-, and YMnO3-type LuFeO3 using pulsed laser deposition

Epitaxial thin-film growth techniques are useful for stabilizing metastable phases and controlling crystal-orientations. Herein, we report the fabrication of LuFeO3 films using pulsed laser deposition. A garnet-type structure of the film was obtained because of epitaxial stabilization. The garnet-type LuFeO3 film exhibits ferrimagnetism with a Curie temperature (TC) of 260 K. This TC is much lower than that of the Lu3Fe5O12 garnet (550 K), as a result of the substitution of nonmagnetic Lu at the octahedral FeO6 sites. We also fabricated GdFeO3-type LuFeO3 epitaxial thin films and controlled the growth orientations of (001) and (011) of the Pbnm structure by varying the substrates. The (001)-oriented YMnO3-type LuFeO3 film could be stabilized on cubic substrates such as yttria stabilized zirconia (YSZ; (001) and (111)) and MgO (100).