Epitaxial thin films of CoFe2O4 (CFO) have successfully been transferred from a SrTiO3 substrate onto a flexible polyimide substrate. By bending the flexible polyimide, different levels of uniaxial strain are continuously introduced into the CFO epitaxial thin films. Unlike traditional epitaxial strain induced by substrates, the strain from bending will not suffer from critical thickness limitation, crystalline quality variation, and substrate clamping, and more importantly, it provides a more intrinsic and reliable way to study strain-controlled behaviors in functional oxide systems. It is found that both the saturation magnetization and coercivity of the transferred films can be changed over the bending status and show a high accord with the movement of the curvature bending radius of the polyimide substrate. This reveals that the mechanical strain plays a critical role in tuning the magnetic properties of CFO thin films parallel and perpendicular to the film plane direction.
Keywords: CoFe2O4; flexible electronics; free-standing thin films; magnetic properties; strain tuning.