Ba ferrite thin films with large saturation magnetization deposited by sputtering in mixture of Xe, Ar and O2

BaM ferrite films 5000 Å thick were deposited on a ZnO underlayer at a substrate temperature of 600°C by the facing targets sputtering method in a mixture of Xe and Ar of 0.19 Pa in addition to O ₂ of 0.01 Pa. The Xe partial pressure P_Xe was varied from 0.0 to 0.19 Pa and then the P_Ar was varied from 0.19 to 0.0 Pa. The films deposited at P_Xe of 0.19 Pa had almost the stoichiometric composition of BaM ferrite and the crystallite size ⟨D⟩, the full width at half maximum of the rocking curve Δθ₅₀, saturation magnetization 4πM_s, squareness S, perpendicular coercivity H_c⊥ were 300 Å, 3.7°, 5.1 kG, 0.51 and 2.3 kOe, respectively. It should be noted that it had larger 4πM_s than that of bulk BaM ferrite, for which 4πM_s is 4.8 kG