Fabrication and Structural Studies of Spin-Coated Cobalt Ferrite Layers

Cobalt ferrite coating of various layers is fabricated on fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO) substrate using a spin coater. A precursor sol of 0.1 M metal ion concentration is employed to develop layers of cobalt ferrite on FTO substrate. Various layers of cobalt ferrite are deposited on the FTO substrate at a rotation speed of 3000 revolutions per minute for 30 seconds. After deposition of each layer, the sample is kept for thermal baking at 200℃ for 5 min. Three samples of three different coats ranging from single layer to three layers are fabricated and thermally baked. These samples are then annealed at 500℃ for 7 hours in air ambient. Structural studies namely phase formation, chemical element analysis and surface morphology of the sample is carried out respectively using X-ray diffractometer (XRD), Energy-dispersive X-ray analysis (EDX) and Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscope (FESEM). These structural characterizations confirm the phase formation of cobalt ferrite. Spin-coated layers of cobalt ferrite can be widely employed in memristive applications due to its excellent resistive switching characteristics. The typical memristive applications are resistive random-access memory (RRAM), artificial intelligence (A.I.), neuromorphic computing, and hardware security. Such deposited cobalt ferrite layers also find applications in gas sensor fabrication, magneto-optic recording technology, and spintronics devices.