Magnetic properties of Mn3O4 film under compressive stress grown on MgAl2O4 (001) by molecular beam epitaxy

Abstract

High quality single-crystalline Mn3O4 thin films were grown on MgAl2O4 (001) substrates by plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy. It is found that the films are compressed in the (001) plane and elongated in the perpendicular direction via in-situ reflection high-energy electron diffraction and ex-situ X-ray diffraction, which is confirmed by frequency hardening of relevant Raman bands. Different from the bulk, the epitaxial film with a thickness of 65 nm shows more obvious magnetic anisotropy and higher magnetic phase transition temperatures (TN = 50 K, T1 = 40.5 K, and T2 = 36 K) than that of the bulk (TN = 42 K, T1 = 39 K, and T2 = 33 K). The variation of magnetic properties could be attributed to the changes of interplay among spin, orbital, and lattice degrees of freedom owing to the residual strain in the epitaxial film. © 2013 AIP Publishing LLC.