Effects of annealing temperature on structure and magnetic properties of Tb x Y 3-x Fe 5O 12 (x=0.2 and 0.4) thin films

Abstract

Terbium-substituted yttrium iron garnet (Tb x Y 3-x Fe 5O 12 (x=0.2 and 0.4)) thin films have been successfully prepared by a sol-gel method followed by spin-coating process. The annealing of the films was performed at different temperatures like 700, 800, and 900C and found that the films annealed at 900C turned out to be crystallized into a pure garnet phase. All of the films were bearing grains of nanometer in size. Increasing the annealing temperature gave extra energy to the grains causing to be agglomerates. The lattice contraction occurred as the grain's sizes were decreased due to the decrease of Fe 2+ formation. The magnetic measurements show that all of the films are soft magnetic materials with low saturation magnetization values. The hysteresis loops of the films which were annealed at 900C were found angular in shape similar to the single crystal-like YIG film. Copyright © 2012 N. B. Ibrahim et al.