Substrate dependent structural and magnetic properties of pulsed laser deposited Fe3O4 thin films.

Nanocrystalline iron oxide thin films have been deposited on various substrates such as quartz, MgO(100), and Si(100) by pulsed laser deposition technique using excimer KrF laser (248 nm). The orientations, crystallite size and lattice parameters were studied using X-ray diffraction. The XRD results show that the films deposited on MgO and Si substrates are highly oriented and show only (400) and (311) reflections respectively. On the other hand, the orientation of the films deposited on quarts substrate changed from (311) to (400) with an increase in the substrate temperature from 400 degrees C to 600 degrees C, indicating thereby that the film growth direction is highly affected with nature of substrate and substrate temperature. The surface morphology of the deposited films was studied using Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) and spherical ball like regular features of nanometer size grains were obtained. The magnetic properties were studied by Superconducting Quantum Interference Device (SQUID) magnetometer in the magnetic field +/- 6 Tesla. The magnetic field dependent magnetization (M-H) curves of all the Fe3O4 thin films measured at 5 K and 300 K show the ferrimagnetic nature. The electrochemical sensing of dopamine studied for these films shows that the film deposited on MgO substrate can be used as a sensing electrode.