The room temperature deposition of high-quality epitaxial yttrium iron garnet thin film via RF sputtering

Yttrium iron garnet (YIG) has great potential in the application of microwave devices and spintronics. However, the extremely high temperature for the growth of single crystalline YIG thin film on garnet substrate has being a barrier hindering its massive production and wide application, especially for some integrated devices which cannot bear high temperature for a long time. In this work, epitaxial single crystalline YIG thin films were successfully obtained by deposition on (111)-oriented gadolinium gallium garnet (GGG) at room temperature via RF sputtering followed by a short-time post-annealing treatment. Their structural and physical properties were carefully studied and compared with that of YIG/GGG(111) thin films deposited at high temperatures. The relatively large saturated magnetization (similar to 120 emu/cc) and a comparable linewidth (similar to 55 Oe) of those room-temperature-deposited YIG thin films can be achieved. This provides a viable alternative for growing YIG thin films on GGG or other garnet substrates. (C) 2017 Elsevier B. V. All rights reserved.