Huairuo Zhang, Daniel M. Marincel, Susan Trolier-McKinstry, et al. Coherent Growth of α-Fe2O3 in Ti and Nd Co-doped BiFeO3 Thin Films[J]. Materials Research Letters, 2016, 4(3): 168-173.
DOI:
Huairuo Zhang, Daniel M. Marincel, Susan Trolier-McKinstry, et al. Coherent Growth of α-Fe2O3 in Ti and Nd Co-doped BiFeO3 Thin Films[J]. Materials Research Letters, 2016, 4(3): 168-173.DOI: 10.1080/21663831.2016.1160260.
Coherent Growth of α-Fe2O3 in Ti and Nd Co-doped BiFeO3 Thin Films
precipitates were observed to form at the surface of epitaxial films of (Bi
0.75
Nd
0.25
)(Fe
0.97
Ti
0.03
)O
3
(BNFO) grown by pulsed laser deposition. The Fe
2
O
3
dendrites are assemblages of nanosized particles with an approximate length of 500 nm. Through the use of atomic resolution scanning transmission electron microscopy
a transition zone at the BNFO/α-Fe
2
O
3
interface
∼2 unit-cells wide
was observed to be Fe
2
O
3
-rich with the perovskite structure. It is proposed that the formation of the Fe
2
O
3
-rich perovskite structure encourages epitaxial growth of the α-Fe
2
O
3
rather than the formation of the incoherent Fe
2
O
3
particulate second phase frequently reported in BiFeO
3
-based thin films.
Impact Statement
The discovery of the new structure may explain the abnormally high ferromagnetic response observed in the BiFeO
3
-based single-phase epitaxial films
and will benefit the communities of materials science.