Off-stoichiometry indexation of BiFeO ₃ thin film on silicon by Rutherford backscattering spectrometry

Abstract

BiFeO 3 is a multiferroic material with physical properties very sensitive to its stoichiometry. BiFeO 3 thin films on silicon substrate are prepared by the sol-gel method combined with layer-by-layer annealing and final annealing schemes. X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy are employed to probe the phase structures and surface morphologies. Using Rutherford backscattering spectrometry to quantify the nonstoichiometries of BiFeO 3 thin films annealed at 100 • C-650 • C. The results indicate that Bi and Fe cations are close to the stoichiometry of BiFeO 3 , whereas the deficiency of O anions possibly plays a key role in contributing to the leakage current of 10 −5 A/cm 2 in a wide range of applied voltage rather than the ferroelectric polarizations of BiFeO 3 thin films annealed at high temperature.

Phase diagrams and magnetic properties of the mixed spin-1 and spin-3/2 Ising ferromagnetic thin film: Monte Carlo treatment

“…Nowadays, the study of Ising thin films has received much attention experimentally and theoretically, because of the progress of the thin film deposition techniques [1][2][3][4][5] and for reasons ranging from fundamental investigations of phase transitions to technical problems encountered in thin film magnets. [6] From the theoretical point of view, many approximations have been used to study the magnetic properties of thin films, such as the mean-field approximation [7,8] and the effective-field theory with correlations.…”