Agradecimentos: Two of the authors (SKS and MK) are very grateful to FAPESP and CNPq (Brazil) for providing financial support (Grant No. 06/06792-2). We are also thankful to the Director and Pelletron Group of Inter-University Accelerator Centre, New Delhi for providing irradiation facilities. We are also very thankful to Dr. (Mrs.) Sonia Sharma for critical reading of the manuscript. Thanks are due to Dr. W. K. Choi, KIST, Korea for support on the magnetization measurements. SK and CGL are thankful to Korean Research Foundation Grant funded by the Korea Government (MOEHRD) (KRF-96 2008-96 005-96 J02703) Ver menos

Abstract: We present a study on the effect of swift heavy ions irradiation on the structural and magnetic properties of Mg0.95Mn0.05Fe2O4 ferrite thin film grown by pulsed laser deposition technique. X-ray diffraction (XRD) pattern of the as-deposited film reveals a cubic spinel structure with an intermediate phase of alpha-Fe2O3. This impurity phase completely dissolves upon irradiation with 200 MeV Ag15+-ions and it exhibits a strong crystallographic texture along the (440) plane. The magnetization values start increasing systematically with irradiation at lower fluence values, whereas decrease for higher one. This decrease in magnetic signal can be attributed to partial amorphization caused by irradiation in agreement with XRD and atomic/magnetic force microscopic images Ver menos