Determination of the composition of thin garnet films by use of radioactive tracer techniques

An isotope tracer technique has been developed for the composition analysis of thin films of magnetic garnets on substrates. The method has been extended to four elements labelled at the same time. The major advantages of the technique are that it is non-destructive and that it is independent of the presence of common ions in the substrate and the film. Using the analysis results, the segregation coefficients of Y, Gd, Fe and Ga have been determined as a function of the film preparation temperature in a PbO-B₂O₃ flux for a bubble domain type material produced by the LPE technique. This method of analysis can also be applied to the CVD method of film preparation.