J Supercond Nov Magn DOI 10.1007/s10948-017-4177-3 ORIGINAL PAPER Magnetization in Nanocrystalline PLD Zinc Ferrite Thin Films Deposited on Fused Quartz Substrate Aashish Jha 1 · Naresh Kumar 1 · Mohit Sahni 1,2 · Amit Srivastava 1 · Jyotirmay Dwivedi 3 · Sanjay Chaubey 1 Received: 9 March 2017 / Accepted: 20 May 2017 © Springer Science+Business Media New York 2017 Abstract The nanocrystalline zinc ferrite (ZnFe 2 O 4 ) thin films were grown on the fused quartz substrate using pulsed laser deposition. The effects of atmospheric conditions on structural, magnetic, and morphological properties have been systematically studied using X-ray diffraction, vibrat- ing sample magnetometry, and atomic force microscopy. The films showed textured growth of zinc ferrite for the sub- strate temperatures at ≥ 600 °C irrespective of the ambient environment. Interestingly, thin films of zinc ferrite showed a magnetic hysteresis loop in contrast to the paramagnetic nature of their bulk counterpart. The value of saturation magnetization (4πM s ) increased from 130 to 360 G when the substrate temperature was increased from room tem- perature (RT) to 800 °C in the oxygen atmosphere. In the absence of oxygen pressure, the value of 4πM s is observed to be 330 G for the film deposited at RT and found to increase to a value of 670 G when the film is deposited at 400 °C and the maximum value of 2580 G is observed for the film deposited at 700 °C. However, the value of 4πM s of 800 °C dropped down to 2000 G.  Naresh Kumar nsisodia@mnnit.ac.in 1 Department of Physics, Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology Allahabad, Allahabad, 211004, India 2 Department of Physics, Sharda University, Plot No. 32-34, Knowledge Park III, Greater Noida, 201306, India 3 Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology Allahabad, Allahabad, 211004, India Keywords Zinc ferrite · X-ray diffraction · Magnetization · Thin film-pulsed laser deposition 1 Introduction Ferrites are ferrimagnetic materials comprised of several oxides with iron oxide (Fe 2 O 3 ) being their key constituent. These materials have been exploited for various commu- nication and defense applications. Ferrites are of various types, the three most important being spinel, garnets, and hexagonal. Spinel and garnets have the cubic crystal struc- ture. Among these ferrites, spinel ferrites have shown their importance for various applications such as switching devices, recording material, etc. [1, 2]. Among the differ- ent spinel ferrites, ZnFe 2 O 4 (ZFO) shows the normal spinel structure in bulk and has been one of the promising mate- rials. In this structure, the Zn 2+ due to their affinity for strong sp 3 bonding with oxygen ions are occupied by A site whereas the Fe 3+ ions are situated at B site, making the 90°angle of Fe 3+ [B]–O 2− –Fe 3+ [B]. In this way, the nega- tive superexchange interaction J BB among Fe 3+ ions leads to the antiferromagnetic behavior of bulk ZnFe 2 O 4 at room temperature with a very low ordering temperature of T N = 10.5 K [1]. Thin films of ZFO have shown different magnetic and electronic properties as compared to the bulk samples [3]. A study of nanocrystalline ZFO thin films deposited by the sputtering method on the glass substrate has been reported by Nakashima et al. [4]. The deposited ZFO thin films have shown room temperature ferrimagnetism with the magnetization of 32 emu/g at 50 kOe. This unusual high magnetization was ascribed to the occupation of the A and B sites by Fe 3+ and Zn 2+ ions, respectively. Sultan et al.