Growth of Sr2CrReO6 epitaxial thin films by pulsed laser deposition

We report the growth, structural, magnetic, and electrical transport properties of epitaxial Sr2CrReO6 thin films. We have succeeded in depositing films with a high crystallinity and a relatively large cationic order in a narrow window of growth parameters. The epitaxy relationship is Sr2CrReO6 (SCRO) (001) [100]parallel to SrTiO3 (STO) (001) [110] as determined by high-resolution X-ray diffraction and scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM). Typical values of saturation magnetization of M-S (300K) = 1 mu(B)/f. u. and rho (300K) = 2.8 m Omega cm have been obtained in good agreement with previous published results in sputtered epitaxial thin films. We estimate that the antisite defects concentration in our thin films is of the order of 14%, and the measured Curie temperature is T-C=481(2) K. We believe these materials be of interest as electrodes in spintronic devices. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.