Tuning the magnetic characteristics of epitaxial BiFeO3 films using structural control

Epitaxial BiFeO(3)thin films with different thicknesses were grown on SrTiO3(001) substrate. The fllm exhibits a structural transformation from ``R-like'' phase with out-of-plane lattice parameter 4.06 ANGS; to a ``T-like'' phase with out-of-plane lattice parameter 4.65 ANGS; on increasing the thickness from 16 nm to 60 nm. The parasitic gamma Fe(2)O(3)phase was avoided by using slightly higher oxygen pressure during the growth. The ``R-like'' phase is shown to exhibit significant magnetic anisotropy and enhanced saturation magnetization which vanishes with the appearance of the ``T-like'' phase.