Advisor(s)

Katherine S. Ziemer

Contributor(s)

Albert Sacco Jr., Elizabeth J. Podlaha-Murphy, Nian-Xiang Sun, Vlado Lazarov

Date of Award

2010

Date Accepted

5-2010

Degree Grantor

Northeastern University

Degree Level

Ph.D.

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Department or Academic Unit

College of Engineering. Department of Chemical Engineering.

Keywords

materials science, chemical engineering, barium ferrite, interface, magnesium oxide, MBE, PLD, silicon carbide

Subject Categories

Ferrites (Magnetic materials), Heterostructures, Spintronics, Microwave integrated circuits

Disciplines

Chemical Engineering | Mechanics of Materials

Abstract

Ferrite/ferroelectric heterostructures have attracted much attention in recent years because of their unique ability to potentially enable dual magnetic and electric field tunability. The simultaneous magnetic and electric tunability in such structures can be applied in a wide range of microwave planar devices (e.g., tunable phase shifters, resonators, and delay lines) and spintronics (e.g., magnetic tunneling junctions for magnetic sensors and nonvolatile magnetic memories). However, the attempts to engineer ferrite/ferroelectric heterostructures to operate at the frequencies higher than 5 GHz are limited. Barium hexaferrite (BaM, BaFe12O19) is an ideal candidate for high frequency microwave device applications because of its strong uniaxial anisotropy (HA ~17 kOe) and can be tuned to ferromagnetic resonance (FMR) at frequencies higher than 40 GHz with relatively small applied magnetic fields. Spinel ferrite Fe3O4 has a high Curie temperature of 858 K and is predicted to possess ~ 100% spin polarization, which can lead to ultrahigh tunneling magnetoresistence even at room temperature. The performance of today's ferrite-based microwave communication and spintronic devices would be enhanced and next-generation monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) would be possible if ferrite/ferroelectric heterostructures can be integrated with wide band gap semiconductors (e.g., SiC or GaN), which can function in high-temperature, high-power, and high-frequency environments. The goal of this work is to use molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) to understand nucleation and film growth mechanisms needed to integrate magnetic ferrites (BaM and Fe3O4) with SiC, and subsequently understand the material chemistry and structure influences on forming functional interfaces (i.e., interfaces that enable effective ferrite/ferroelectric coupling).

The study of chemistry, structure, and magnetic properties of three generations of BaM films grown by pulsed laser deposition shows a MBE-grown single crystalline MgO template promotes the c-axis alignment through formation of an oxygen bridge at the interface and minimizes the interface mixing, which enables the effective heteroepitaxy of device quality BaM on 6H-SiC. Epitaxial single crystalline BaM film with strong c-axis perpendicular alignment, high HA (16.2 kOe) and magnetization (4.1 kG) was also successfully grown by MBE for the first time on 6H-SiC. Through MBE, further study of the chemistry and structure evolution at the BaM//SiC interface suggests the 10 nm MgO template not only functions as a diffusion barrier, but also forms a spinel transition layer that is structurally similar to BaM. The high quality BaM film on SiC is compatible with MMIC and can also function as a magnetic layer in BaM/ferroelectric multiferroic heterostructures for electrostatic FMR tuning. Through MBE, single crystalline, epitaxial Fe3O4 (111) films and Fe3O4/BaTiO3/Fe3O4 heterostructures were successfully integrated with 6H-SiC. The Fe3O4 film exhibits high strucutrual order with sharp interfaces and an easy axis in-plane magnetization with a coercivity of 200 Oe. In the Fe3O4/BaTiO3/Fe3O4 heterostructure, the magnetoeletric coupling is demonstrated at room-temperature by an electric field induced magnetic anisotropy field change. The Fe3O4/BaTiO3/Fe3O4 heterostructure has the potential application in multiferroic tunneling junction used in novel information storage. Understanding the ferrite growth mechanisms and interface functions through this research, is an important contribution toward the realization of a next-generation, multifunctional device.

Document Type

Dissertation

Rights Holder

Zhuhua Cai


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