Effects of annealing temperature on magnetic properties of Bi0.9Nd0.1FeO3 thin films

Perovskite Bi0.9Nd0.1FeO3 (BNFO) thin films were synthesized on Si(100) by Rf magnetron sputtering method. The effects of annealing temperature on the structure and morphology of the thin films have been characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscope (SEM). The magnetic properties were measured using a vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM) at room temperature. It was found that the saturation magnetization Ms changed slightly at the range from 18 to 22 emu/cm3 with the annealing temperature increasing from 450 °C to 650 °C. With the annealing temperature increased to 750 °C, the average grain size of the BNFO film is about 80 nm and the saturation magnetization increases abruptly to 3686 emu/cm3. When the annealing temperature increased further to 850 °C, Ms decreases to 40 emu/cm3 abruptly. The possible mechanism for the annealing temperature effects was discussed.