Sol-gel preparation and AFM study of spinel CoFe sub(2)O sub(4) thin film

The thin films of CoFe sub(2)O sub(4) spinel ferrite were prepared on the substrates of monocrystalline silicon(100) at low temperature by means of a developed citrate processing. According to the AFM observation and XRD studies, several key processing parameters were optimized. In the coating solution, the volume ratio of the mixed solvents water/ethanol, the concentration of citric acid and that of PEG were chosen as 1:8, 0.2 mol/l and 40-80 mg/ml, respectively. The films resulted from the annealing of thus-obtained film precursors at 630-679 degree C for 1 h possess high quality surface and well-crystallized spinel structure. The methods presented in the paper makes it very convenient to perform substitution of foreign ions.