Structure and magnetic properties of Bi-Zn-Fe-O amorphous films

Abstract

Strong ferromagnet-like glasses have been prepared by rapidly quenching the molten mixture of antiferromagnetic BiFeO <inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">3</inf> and ZnFe <inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</inf> O <inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">4</inf> and by depositing simultaneously the ionized clusters of Bi, Zn and Fe atoms in a low pressure oxygen gas atmosphere. The Curie temperature of the glasses appears at 460-510 K and the magnetization reaches about 15-20 emu/g at 10 kOe at room temperature. Based on the Mössbauer effect and EXAFS measurements, the glass is concluded to be a speromagnet consisting of magnetic spins localized on each Fe atom tetrahedrally surrounded by four 0 atoms.