BiFeO3 films on steel substrate prepared by the polymerized complex method

BiFeO3 films on steel substrate prepared by the polymerized complex method Victor Fruth, Katarina Sedlackova, Mónica Popa*, Csaba Balazsi, Daniel Crespo, José M. Calderón-Moreno Department of Applied Physics, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Av. Canal Olimpic s/n Castelldefels 08860 Barcelona, Spain Institute of Physical Chemistry, Bucharest 060021, Romania e-mail: [email protected] Web page: http://congress.cimne.upc.es/iib07 ABSTRACT We deposited BiFeO3 films on stainless steel substrates using a simple low-temperature wetchemical route. We used bismuth and iron nitrates as metal source and two chelating agents, citric acid and polyvinyl alcohol, in water to prepare a solution and deposited the film by dipping the steel substrate in the viscous solution. We have investigated the structure of the BiFeO3 film on steel by HRSEM, TEM, HRTEM, EDS and EELS. The film deposited on the steel substrate has two sublayers: a very thin (about 100 nm) nanocrystalline layer, with crystallite size of few nms, and a thicker (about 1 micron) crystalline layer. Fig. 1. SEM images of the BiFeO3 film on steel substrate Fig. 2. TEM and ED images of the BiFeO3 film REFERENCES [1] V. Fruth, M. Popa, J. M. Calderon, E. M. Anghel, D. Berger, M. Gartner, M. Anastasescu, P. Oiceanu, M. Zaharescu, “BiFeO3 films; structures and properties”, J. Eur. Ceram. Soc., in press (2007).