Structural and magnetic properties of CoTiO3 thin films on SrTiO3 (001)

CoTiO3 (CTO) thin films were grown on single crystal SrTiO3 (STO) (001) substrates by pulsed laser deposition, with thicknesses ranging between 2.6 and 25 nm. Two-dimensional growth is observed up to a thickness of 2 unit cells, but then the film partially relaxes with CTO [100] oriented parallel to STO [110] and CTO [001] oriented parallel to the STO [001]. Magnetic characterization of our films revealed an enhancement of the antiferromagnetic Neel temperature (to similar to 53 K) when compared to the bulk (38 K). This is attributed to a tensile c-axis strain as evidenced from x-ray diffraction measurements. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.