Large Second Harmonic Kerr rotation in GaFeO3 thin films on YSZ buffered Silicon

TL;DR

This study demonstrates the growth of epitaxial GaFeO3 thin films on silicon with a YSZ buffer, exhibiting a significant second harmonic Kerr rotation of about 15 degrees in the ferromagnetic state.

Contribution

It reports the successful epitaxial growth of GaFeO3 on silicon with a YSZ buffer and highlights the large nonlinear Kerr rotation observed.

Findings

Large second harmonic Kerr rotation (~15 degrees) detected.

Epitaxial GaFeO3 films grown on silicon with YSZ buffer.

Ferromagnetic transition temperature around 215 K.

Abstract

Epitaxial thin films of gallium iron oxide (GaFeO3) are grown on (001) silicon by pulsed laser deposition (PLD) using yttrium-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) buffer layer. The crystalline template buffer layer is in-situ PLD grown through the step of high temperature stripping of the intrinsic silicon surface oxide. The X-ray diffraction pattern shows c-axis orientation of YSZ and b-axis orientation of GaFeO3 on Si (100) substrate. The ferromagnetic transition temperature (TC ~ 215 K) is in good agreement with the bulk data. The films show a large nonlinear second harmonic Kerr rotation of ~15 degrees in the ferromagnetic state.