Influence of substrate temperature on delafossite CuFeO2 films synthesized by reactive magnetron sputtering

•Rhombohedral CuFeO2 films have been reactively sputtered from 380° to 550 °C.•At 510 °C, the [006] preferred orientation prevails on the [012] direction.•Crystal anisotropy alters the optical and electrical properties of thin films.•Partial dissociation of CuFeO2 occurs with the rise of deposition temperature. Delafossite CuFeO2 films have been synthesized by reactive magnetron sputtering at different substrate temperatures from 380 up to 550 °C. The films adopt the rhombohedral structure from 380 to 550 °C. At the highest temperature, the delafossite phase partially dissociates in FCC Cu and Fe3O4 magnetite phases. In addition to the average crystallite size increase, a change of the preferential orientation in the out-of-plane direction from the [012] to [006] directions occurs between 460 and 510 °C. Modelling of the optical properties shows the presence of 2 interband transitions in the visible range. The 1st main transition at 1.5 eV is ascribed to the absorption component parallel to the c-axis whereas the 2nd transition (2.10 – 2.26 eV) is related to the absorption component in the (a, b) plane. Both evolutions with temperature of the refractive index (~ 2.5) and absorption coefficient (~ 10-3 cm-1) in the infrared suggest the formation of secondary phases. The electronic conductivity, dominated by positive charge carrier, varied from 0.01 to 10 S m-1 according to the preferential orientation and to the presence of secondary phases. A very small amount of a short-range ferromagnetic component (magnetization ~ 10 kA m-1 at 1.5 T) is clearly observed at room temperature thanks to magnetometry confirming the formation of secondary phases undetected by X-ray diffraction. In addition to depend on the film orientation, the presence of secondary phases in weak proportion alters the optical and electrical behaviours such as the transmittance in the visible range.