Structural and Magnetic Properties of Thin-film ScFeO₃

Structural and magnetic properties of ScFeO₃ compound were investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and vibrating sample magnetometry (VSM) in comparison with those of Fe₂O₃ and Sc₂O₃. The specimens were prepared as thin films under identical sol-gel deposition process. The XRD data indicated that the ScFeO₃ specimen have cubic bixbyite structure, identical to that of the Sc₂O₃ specimen but different from that of the Fe₂O₃ specimen (rhombohedral). The estimated lattice constant of ScFeO₃ is smaller than that of Sc₂O₃ by 2.9 %. According to the VSM data, the ScFeO₃ specimen showed a magnetic hysteresis curve that is alike in shape to that of the Fe₂O₃ specimen with the saturation magnetization of the former (2.6 emu/㎤) being smaller by 30 % than that of the latter (3.7 emu/㎤). The observed small magnetization in ScFeO₃ implies an antiferromagnetic spin alignment of neighboring FeSUP3+/SUP ions with canted spin magnetic moment.