Large-scale fabrication of thulium iron garnet film with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy using RF magnetron sputtering

Abstract Large-scale fabrication of thulium iron garnet (TmIG) films on gadolinium gallium garnet (GGG) substrates, with a total area of 25 cm 2 , has been demonstrated by rotating substrate holders during on-axis sputtering. By optimizing the growth parameters based on the pressure and flow rate of the oxygen ratio, a Tm/Fe ratio of 0.65 was obtained, which is close to the stoichiometry of TmIG. The increase in post-annealing temperature has induced the growth of the TmIG structure by the strain of the lattice constant mechanism. At the highest post-annealing temperature, the crystal structure of TmIG (444) and the perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA) were obtained. This result demonstrates the potential method for large-scale fabrication of TmIG film with PMA.