Self - Assembled Epitaxial Multiferroic Nanocomposite Films Pre - pared by Polymer - Assisted Deposition 1

Submitted for the MAR08 Meeting of The American Physical Society Self-Assembled Epitaxial Multiferroic Nanocomposite Films Prepared by Polymer-Assisted Deposition1 HONGMEI LUO, HAO YANG, EVE BAUER, T. MARK MCCLESKEY, ANTHONY K. BURRELL, QUANXI JIA, Materials Physics and Applications Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM 87545 — Multiferroic materials, which show simultaneous electric and magnetic ordering, have attracted considerable interest recently due to their unusual physical properties and potential device applications. Here we demonstrate that a cost-effective chemical solution approach of polymer-assisted deposition (PAD) is a very promising technique to grow self-assembled epitaxial multiferroic nanocomposite thin films: such as BaTiO3-NiFe2O4 films grown on (001)-oriented LaAlO3 substrate. X-ray diffraction (XRD), atomic force microscopy (AFM) and high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) analyses show clear epitaxial relationship between the two phases and the substrate. The ferroelectric BaTiO3 grains are embedded in the ferrimagnetic spinel NiFe2O4 matrix. The composite films exhibit both ferroelectric and ferrimagnetic properties. The structure and properties will be discussed and compared with the nanocomposite films prepared by pulsed-laser deposition (PLD) method. 1This work was supported by LDRD Project at LANL. Hongmei Luo Materials Physics and Applications Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM 87545 Date submitted: 20 Nov 2007 Electronic form version 1.4