Liquid phase deposition of iron and cobalt doped TiO2epitaxial thin films

Liquid phase deposition LPD is a wet process in which metal oxide thin films can be deposited on substrates via a chemical equilibrium reaction between a metal fluorocomplex and a metal oxide in aqueous solution. In this study, iron and cobalt doped TiO2anatase thin films were deposited on 001 oriented SrTiO3single crystal substrates using liquid phase deposition. The process involves the reaction of ammonium hexafluorotitanate and boric acid, in the presence of FeOOH–HF and CoNO32–ethylenediamine en for the iron and cobalt doped TiO2films respectively. Cobalt doping was also attempted by immersing a nondoped TiO2film in a solution of Coen ions. XRD shows that the films are caxis oriented and films epitaxy was confirmed using pole figure measurements. No metallic secondary phases were detected by XRD and XPS. The iron and cobalt doped films are observed to yield room temperature ferromagnetism. The insulating nature of the films suggests that bound magnetic polarons are responsible for the observed ferromagnetism. © 2008 WILEYVCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim