THE EFFECT OF DEPOSITION AND ANNEALING CONDITIONS ON TEXTURED GROWTH OF SPUTTER-DEPOSITED STRONTIUM FERRITE FILMS ON DIFFERENT SUBSTRATES

M-type strontium ferrite films were prepared by radio-frequency (rf) s puttering on fused quartz substrates using different deposition condit ions and were subjected to two different types of annealing treatments . The study showed that in addition to the deposition conditions such as rf power, oxygen to argon ratio in the sputtering gas, and target t o substrate distance, the postdeposition annealing conditions also pla y an important role in determining the texture and properties of the f ilms. The films with random orientation or with preferred c-axis orien tation either normal to the film plane or in the film plane could be d eposited depending on the process parameters chosen. The study carried out by depositing these films on different substrates such as Si(100) , Si(111), sapphire(110), and Gd3Ga5O12(111) showed that though the na ture of the substrates plays a role in determining the texture and pro perties of the films, such effects are less dominant in comparison to the effect of deposition and annealing conditions in the case of stron tium ferrite films. (C) 1996 American Institute of Physics.