Structures and magnetic behaviours of TiO₂–Mn–TiO₂ multilayers

The TiO₂–Mn–TiO₂ multilayers are successfully grown on glass and silicon substrates by alternately using radio frequency reactive magnetron sputtering and direct current magnetron sputtering. The structures and the magnetic behaviours of these films are characterised with x-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscope (TEM), vibrating sample magnetometer, and superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID). It is shown that the multi-film consists of a mixture of anatase and rutile TiO₂ with an embedded Mn nano-film. It is found that there are two turning points from ferromagnetic phase to antiferromagnetic phase. One is at 42 K attributed to interface coupling between ferromagnetic Mn₃O₄ and antiferromagnetic Mn₂O₃, and the other is at 97 K owing to the interface coupling between ferromagnetic Mn and antiferromagnetic MnO. The samples are shown to have ferromagnetic behaviours at room temperature from hysteresis in the M–H loops, and their ferromagnetism is found to vary with the thickness of Mn nano-film. Moreover, the Mn nano-film has a critical thickness of about 18.5 nm, which makes the coercivity of the multi-film reach a maximum of about 3.965times 10 ^{- 2} T.