The competition between magnetocrystalline and shape anisotropy on the magnetic and magneto-transport properties of crystallographically aligned CuCr₂Se₄ thin films

Highlights: • CuCr₂Se₄ thin films were synthesized with the modulated elemental reactants method. • Films consist of nanocrystals with (1 1 1) planes aligned parallel to the film plane. • A switch was observed from in-plane to out-of-plane effective anisotropy at ∼160 K. • The films exhibit negative magnetoresistance at low temperatures. - Abstract: Crystallographically aligned nanocrystalline films of the ferromagnetic spinel CuCr₂Se₄ were successfully synthesized and their structure and alignment were confirmed by X-ray diffraction and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy. The average size of the crystallites is about 200–250 nm, and their (1 1 1) crystal planes are parallel to the film plane. A good match of the film's electronic structure to that of bulk CuCr₂Se₄ is confirmed by transverse Kerr effect measurements. Four easy 〈1 1 1〉 axes are present in the films. One of these axes is oriented perpendicular and three others are oriented at an angle of 19.5° relative to the film plane. The magnetic properties of the films are determined by a competition between the out-of-plane magnetocrystalline anisotropy and the in-plane shape anisotropy. Magnetic measurements show that the dominating type of anisotropy switches from shape to magnetocrystalline anisotropy near 160 K, which leads to a switch of the effective easy axis from inside the film plane at room temperature to perpendicular to the film plane as the temperature decreases. At last, a moderately large, negative value of the low-temperature magnetoresistance was observed for the first time in CuCr₂Se₄ films.