Document VersionPublisher's PDF, also known as Version of Record (includes final page, issue and volume numbers)Please check the document version of this publication:• A submitted manuscript is the author's version of the article upon submission and before peer-review. There can be important differences between the submitted version and the official published version of record. People interested in the research are advised to contact the author for the final version of the publication, or visit the DOI to the publisher's website.• The final author version and the galley proof are versions of the publication after peer review.• The final published version features the final layout of the paper including the volume, issue and page numbers. Link to publication General rightsCopyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights.• Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research.• You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal ? Take down policyIf you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Recent studies show that the magnetic properties of epitaxial thin films of magnetite (Fe 3 O 4 ) deviate strongly from bulk behavior: it is difficult to saturate thin films, ultrathin films may become super paramagnetic, their saturation magnetization drops to zero, and the local magnetic moments are oriented out of plane in zero field. The possible relationship between this anomalous behavior and the occurrence of anti-phase boundaries ͑APBs͒ is discussed. Transmission electron microscopy images confirm that APBs are present in our Fe 3 O 4 films grown by molecular beam epitaxy on MgO͑100͒. Only APBs with out-of-plane shift vectors are visible. The much higher APB density found in sputtered films suggests that preparation conditions are important. To explain the deviating saturation and the superparamagnetic behavior of thin Fe 3 O 4 films at the same time, the magnetic coupling over the APB must be dramatically reduced due to spin disorder along the boundaries.

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A series of Fe–Hf–O films has been prepared by means of rf sputter deposition. The composition for optimal permeability was found to be Fe55Hf17O28. These films exhibit a combination of soft-magnetic properties (μ>103, Hc<50 A/m, μ0Ms⩾1.0 T) and a high resistivity (ρ>1 mΩ cm) after rapid thermal annealing in flowing argon at 400 °C in a dc magnetic field. The structure of the films consists of α-Fe nanocrystallites, randomly dispersed in an amorphous matrix. The amorphous phase is essential in achieving the advantageous combination of properties. In contrast to conventional soft-magnetic films, the properties of the Fe55Hf17O28 films do not show a strong thickness dependence for thicknesses up to 10 μm. Therefore, the roll-off frequency of the initial relative permeability for 10 μm thick films is high, but not as high as expected from only the resistivity. It is shown that, besides electromagnetic induction, ferromagnetic resonance is also essential in explaining the observed frequency dependence of the permeability.