Study on Pre-annealing in the MOD Process for Bi-substituted Nd-based Magnetic Garnet Films

Abstract

Pre-annealing process in the metal-organic decomposition (MOD) method for Bi-substituted Nd magnetic garnet films was studied. In this paper, we report on crystallinity and magneto-optical (MO) properties of Nd₂BiFe₄Ga₁O₁₂ and Nd_0.5Bi_2.5Fe₅O₁₂ thin films prepared with pre-annealing temperatures of 250 - 500ºC and annealing temperature of 650ºC. Decomposition process of metal carboxylates in the MOD solutions were investigated by means of FT-IR measurement for pre-annealed thin films. It was found that, good crystallinity and MO property were obtained for the thin films prepared with the pre-annealing temperatures of 350 - 450ºC, in which alkyl group was decomposed, while -COO^- was remained.