Chemical solution deposition is used to grow biaxially textured NiFe2O4 (NFO) thin films on (0001) sapphire substrates; a high degree of out-of-plane orientation in the 〈111〉 direction is confirmed by θ–2θ X-ray diffraction and pole figures. X-ray φ-scanning indicates in-plane texture and an epitaxial relationship between NFO (111) and Al2O3 (0001) in two crystallographic variants. The out-of-plane magnetization exhibits improved Mr/Ms from 0.5 in 110 nm-thick films to 0.8 in 60 nm-thick films. Compared to uniaxially textured NFO films on platinized silicon, the out-of-plane coercivity is reduced by 20%. The improved out-of-plane magnetic anisotropy is comparable to epitaxial NFO films of similar thickness deposited by pulsed laser deposition and sputtering.

(111)-oriented epitaxial thin films of nickel ferrite (NFO) are grown on c-plane sapphire [a-Al 2 O 3 (0001)] substrates using a chemical solution deposition technique. The processing conditions, including pyrolysis and annealing temperatures, are varied to achieve a film that shows maximum texture and epitaxy. It is shown that increasing the pyrolysis temperature to 400°C and decreasing the annealing temperature to 750°C for 10 min result in the highest degree of texture in the films. Lower film thickness also leads to a higher degree of texture. Microstructural studies confirm an in-plane epitaxial relationship between the (111) NFO film and the (0001) Al 2 O 3 substrate in two variants, [110] NFO || ½10 10 Al2O3 or ½1 100 Al2O3 .