Epitaxial growth of metal oxide films on semiconducting substrates plays an important role in microelectronic monolithic integrated circuits. Different techniques like MBE, laser ablation, chemical vapour deposition and sputtering are used for production of the layers. The main difficulties arise from lattice mismatch and chemical reactions between semiconductor substrate and oxide layer. This has been observed for Fe₃O₄ film deposited by laser ablation on Si substrate.
Microstructure of Fe₃O₄ film deposited on (100) oriented Si substrate by sputtering was investigated by TEM and X-ray methods. Fe₃O₄ film was polycrystalline with preferential orientation of (111) planes parallel to Si substrate, but without preferential in plane direction. An amorphous 3-4 nm thick layer was observed between the substrate and Fe₃O₄ film. Occurrence of crystallites, oriented in the same manner like substrate suggest, that even in presence of an amorphous layer, the pseudoepitaxial growth of Fe₃O₄ film is possible.