Mechanical and Magnetic Properties of Double Layered Nanostructures of Tin and Zirconium Oxides Grown by Atomic Layer Deposition

Double layered stacks of ZrO(2) and SnO(2) films, aiming at the synthesis of thin magnetic and elastic material layers, were grown by atomic layer deposition to thicknesses in the range of 20–25 nm at 300 °C from ZrCl(4), SnI(4), H(2)O, and O(3) as precursors. The as-deposited nanostructures consisted of a metastable tetragonal polymorph of ZrO(2), and a stable tetragonal phase of SnO(2), with complementary minor reflections from the orthorhombic polymorph of SnO(2). The hardness and elastic modulus of the stacks depended on the order of the constituent oxide films, reaching 15 and 171 GPa, respectively, in the case of top SnO(2) layers. Nonlinear saturative magnetization could be induced in the stacks with coercive fields up to 130 Oe.