Structural and magnetic characteristics of BaFe12O19/ZnO multilayers by arc discharge evaporation

The vacuum-arc evaporation method is applied to prepare BaFe₁₂O₁₉/ZnO multilayers with sharp periodic structure. The film consists of 25 bilayers composed of 120 Å BaFe ₁₂O₁₉ and 12 Å ZnO layers and shows excellent orientation of the c-axis in crystallites normal to the layer plane. They reveal an apparent perpendicular magnetic anisotropy and exhibit moderately large saturation magnetization and properly high coercivity applicable for perpendicular recording disks. This seems to originate from the crystalline anisotropy along the c-axis of BaFe₁₂O₁₉ crystallites. The orientation of the c-axis normal to the film plane might be caused by the c-axis orientation of crystallites in ZnO layers